


All the Hours in Between

by Tam_Cranver



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-11
Updated: 2011-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-24 12:58:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 48,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tam_Cranver/pseuds/Tam_Cranver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fusion with the 1985 film <cite><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089457/">Ladyhawke</a></cite>, in which Brendon is a pickpocket, Jon an excommunicated priest, Spencer a soldier with a murky past, and Ryan a mysterious man who only seems to appear at night. Written for reel_band in 2007.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Hours in Between

_Wednesday_

Brendon was fairly sure that nothing in the entire course of his life had been anywhere near as horrible as trying to squeeze himself through the drain of his cell in the dungeons of Aquila. Really, nothing came even close.

“Dear God,” he whispered as he pushed himself along one more agonizing inch, “I’m sorry for complaining about being hungry before. I see now that it was all part of your plan to make me skinny enough to fit down this shaft. Now I just wish I’d helped you and not eaten that bread last night….” The stench of shit all around him made him gag, and he forced himself not to puke, his throat burning. No point in making this experience any more disgusting than it already was.

“Lord,” he continued, straining his eyes in the darkness, “If you get me out of this alive, I swear I’ll try to get a real job and stop picking pockets. I know I’ve said that before, but this time I really mean it. Really.” He tried to focus his mind entirely on fervently convincing God of his sincerity so as to not think about what he was crawling through.

Suddenly, he saw a light ahead. It was faint and dim, but real, and he renewed his efforts with extra vigor. “Amen,” he muttered. He didn’t have much time now; the bells had rung out five o’clock a while ago, and he was due to be hanged at sunup. Oh, to be sure, it wouldn’t be precisely at sunup, given the laziness of your average guard, but that wasn’t something he wanted to count on, and he’d just as soon be safely out of the dungeons entirely before they came to his cell to look for him.

“Just a little further now….” He could hear the rushing of water coming from below the small opening—he must have reached the sewers. Well, they couldn’t possibly be any worse than where he was now. Wincing as the stone walls of the drain scraped the skin on his shoulder, he dragged himself the last few feet and stuck his head out of the drain’s opening.

Fifteen or twenty feet below, he saw murky water rushing along, casting dappled patterns of light and shadow on the sewer walls. He couldn’t see where the light was coming from—another drain, perhaps?—but he was grateful for its dimness. His eyes were so used to darkness at this point, he fully expected to be blinded by the daylight if he ever made it out. “ _When_ I make it out,” he said firmly to himself. It wouldn’t do to lose faith now.

The opening to the sewers seemed even smaller than the drain shaft. It took a great deal of contortion and sucking in of breath to squeeze his torso through it, and even then, Brendon felt he was probably bleeding from a dozen scrapes on his shoulders and back. Still, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t had worse, with a lot less at stake than now. Steadying himself and taking a deep breath, he curved his body away from the wall and let himself slip out of the drain, down through the dank air into the water.

 _Ugh._ One thing you could say for the drain at least, none of its contents had found their way into Brendon’s _mouth._ He sputtered for a moment, wishing now for anything that would take the horrible taste out of his mouth. After spitting into the water a few times, Brendon froze; he heard something. Voices, it sounded like. He strained his ears to make out what they were saying. Surely, surely the guards hadn’t thought to look for him in the sewer yet?

But it wasn’t the guards, it was a priest reciting the Liturgy of the Hours. Somehow, in the course of his crawling around in the drains, he’d ended up directly under the cathedral. As frightened as he was, habits instilled in his childhood (and a healthy dose of curiosity) compelled him to pause for a moment and try to figure out the liturgy’s source.

It wasn’t hard. A big drainpipe set low in the wall seemed to be connected to the cathedral’s main sanctuary. Brendon crawled up inside it—it wasn’t like he could get any filthier at this point—and was amazed to see that it went all the way up. Brendon could actually _see_ one of the stained-glass windows in the sanctuary through a grate at the top of the drain. Clearly, it was a sign, a sign that God was personally blessing Brendon’s escape mission, and he offered a brief prayer of thanksgiving before slipping out of the pipe and pondering which way to go next.

The sound of the flowing water echoed off the walls, giving him no real clues as to where it was coming from and where it was going to. He frowned thoughtfully through the dim light at its surface; from whichever direction it came, it all seemed to be flowing towards his left.

“Where it goes, so shall I,” he muttered to himself, reluctantly lowering his body once more into the fetid water.

At least, he thought as he waded along, the water wasn’t too cold, even if he was definitely going to have to throw these clothes away. It was slow going, though, and he began to shiver in his wet clothes. He lost track of how far he was walking, but he kept an ear out for the tolling of the bells. It had to be past sunup now, as evidenced by the light in the sewer. Did the guards know where the drain led? Would they standing there at the other end, waiting to catch him the moment he stepped out into the fresh air?

 _Don’t think that way,_ he chided himself. _Almost there…_ the roaring of the water was growing louder. He had to be getting closer to where it met up with….what? He didn’t know. Probably another sewer, he thought gloomily.

Suddenly, the tunnel seemed to end. Brendon looked around; it didn’t join to another tunnel or anything like that, it just _stopped._ A rush of panic pressed on his chest, choking him. He didn’t have time now to try walking the other way. The sun was up, the executions had undoubtedly already begun, and the guards would be discovering his absence any moment now, if they hadn’t already.

He forced himself to take a deep breath. “God,” he said, “I know I must be really trying your patience today, but if it isn’t too much trouble, I could really use a way out of here.” He stood still for a moment, listening. The water was still flowing _somewhere._ He couldn’t see where it was going, but it certainly hadn’t stopped; he could hear it and feel it still rushing past his legs. He leaned down, peering into the murky water.

The water seemed to be flowing downward. He couldn’t make out a drain or lattice or anything, but he could see the water swirling as it moved down into the darkness. Maybe an underground reservoir? He couldn’t imagine how he would get out of an underground reservoir—indeed, he was hard-pressed to picture one—but anything was better than standing here, waiting to be captured. He took a deep breath and sank into the water.

He couldn’t make out much of anything in the dim light and dirty water, but he followed the current down. The water got dramatically deeper; it was as if the tunnel had simply switched directions and now went down instead of forward. In another moment, Brendon was going to have to come up for air. He certainly couldn’t follow an underwater tunnel indefinitely.

His foot hit something on the side of the tunnel, and with some difficulty, he turned himself around to get a look at it. _Aha!_ It was a rusted, algae-covered iron grate—an exit, the most beautiful thing Brendon had ever seen. Now, how to get through? He pushed at it hesitantly, hoping perhaps it would open, but nothing happened, except his hands getting covered in slimy green algae. He felt quickly along both sides: no hinges. The bars of the grate were too close together for him to squeeze through. He was running out of air in earnest now. Either he found a way out in the next thirty seconds or so, or he’d have to go back to the surface and try again.

He quickly ran his hands over the grate, searching for maybe a rusty bar that would give way or something. And then—miracle of miracles—he found that, in a large patch at the bottom of the grate, this had already happened, leaving an opening large enough for a fish (or a thin boy) to slip through.

Ignoring the burning in his lungs, Brendon forced himself through the opening, earning himself a few more scratches. Then, desperate for air, he swam as hard as he could upwards. To his amazement, when he popped his head out of the water, it was no underground cavern that he saw, but a bridge, a few buildings, a couple of men sitting by the riverbank fishing.

“Thank you, God, thank you!” he muttered. He seemed to have emerged into the dark shadows under a bridge. Exhausted, he swam over to sit on one of the patches of sand and gravel that lined the riverbank around the bridge. The sunwarmed sand felt heavenly against his cold wet body, and he sighed in happiness.

The peaceful moment didn’t last long, though. The bells in the tower started ringing frantically. Puzzled, Brendon wondered if the bell-ringer just didn’t _know_ the patterns for the lauds prayer, or had lost count of how many times the bells were supposed to ring when chiming the hour. Then it hit him—it was an alarm. Probably telling all the good citizens of Aquila about _him._

He dove into the water again just as a troop of the Bishop’s Guard came galloping by in their scarlet uniforms. Grumbling and a little fearful, the fishermen got up to see what all the commotion was, leaving their things in a pile on the riverbank. Brendon, who, even in a panic, had never been one to miss an opportunity, swam over to the abandoned possessions.

“I’m sorry, Lord,” he said, feeling incredibly guilty. So much for his becoming a model citizen. “I swear, after I make it out of this city, I really will give up the whole stealing thing. I just need something to help me on my way.” He wondered, as he snatched a coin purse from one fisherman’s coat pocket, whether God really believed him, or was standing somewhere in heaven rolling his eyes. He suspected the latter.

***

Captain Gabriel Saporta of the Bishop’s Guard was having the longest day of his career, and it was scarcely eight o’clock in the morning. Any day that involved him actually meeting with the Bishop was never a good one, even when there was nothing but good news to report. He didn’t even let himself think about what the Bishop would be like today.

The Bishop had greeted Gabe distractedly, frowning into his flowering bushes as if they held the clue to some mystery he was pondering. Gabe had wanted to break the news to him quickly, so as to get out of His Grace’s slightly eerie garden sooner, but one couldn’t rush conversations with the Bishop. Damn him.

At long last, he turned, his smooth face like a mask. “Well?” he said. “What is it?”

Gabe steeled himself. For such a thin, pretty, almost effeminate man, Bishop William of Beckett had depths of dark temper in him that alarmed even Gabe. “One of the prisoners in the dungeons escaped.”

Beckett frowned uncomprehendingly. “Nobody escapes from the dungeons of Aquila.”

“He…he must have crawled through the drain,” Gabe said. “The guards responsible for watching him have already been punished.”

“Good,” said Beckett, still looking strangely distracted.

“I didn’t think it necessary to expend too much effort on retrieving him,” said Gabe, hoping his words didn’t get him dismissed or killed. “I sent a troop of the Guard after him, but they’re currently under orders to return at nightfall. He’s just a pickpocket, and it’d be a miracle if he even made it out of the sewer system.”

Beckett’s eyes suddenly fixed themselves on Gabe, all his distraction gone. Gabe winced. “And who,” Beckett said with a rather sinister-looking smile, “would know better than me about the existence of miracles?”

Gabe felt an uncharacteristic urge to cross himself or make a sign against the devil. Instead he gripped his sword more tightly and said, “You want me to keep after him, then?”

“Even the smallest signs of lawlessness can lead to chaos and rebellion,” said Beckett, staring into the distance. “You can’t show them any mercy, or they’ll take advantage of it. You cannot try to be their friends, or they’ll ruin you.”

Gabe wasn’t even sure what the Bishop was talking about anymore. “I’ll find him. You have my word on that, Your Grace.”

“Good,” said Beckett. He bent down and picked a flower from between his feet, plucking its petals one by one. “Go find him, then.”

Gabe left with a bow, feeling as if he had escaped from a lion’s den. There were days when he would happily trade in this Guard business to be a common mercenary again. At least you knew what to expect from backstabbing professional killers.

***

Somewhere in the distance, on a grassy ridge overlooking the city of Aquila and the surrounding fields, a sturdy young man who had once been known as the Captain of the Bishop’s Guard sat, perched on his horse, watching as the scarlet-clothed horsemen spread themselves out across the countryside. A large hawk with uncommonly clever eyes was perched on his right arm.

“Well,” he said to the bird, his blue eyes warm with affection, “our friend the wine merchant says that the baker says that his friend who delivers cabbage to the city says that someone has actually escaped from the dungeons of Aquila. Of course, we have to consider the source.”

The hawk looked at him with a sharp expression, and he smiled softly. “Yes, I believe it, too. Seeing our friends down there,” he said, indicating with a sweep of his left arm the scattered troops, “only confirms it. The innkeeper says the escaped prisoner is named Brendon Urie, but he’s called “The Mouse” by the city guard. Good Master Trohman is convinced that he’s a dangerous murderer, but with a nickname like that, I think it’s more likely he’s a thief of some kind, probably a pickpocket. Don’t you agree?”

The hawk didn’t respond, but something about the way it scanned the horizon with its piercing brown eyes made the other man stroke its head lovingly. “My thought was,” he said to the hawk in a low voice, “if Master Urie can find his way out of Aquila without being caught, then perhaps—just perhaps—he can find his way in, as well. Of course,” he said in somewhat more businesslike tones, “we’d have to find him, first.”

The hawk screeched. With a laugh, and a final whisper of, “I’ll take that as agreement, then,” Spencer Smith galloped towards the city, the hawk still poised confidently on his arm.

 

 _Friday_

After two days of running about in the woods, Brendon was tired, cold, hungry, and he was sure he smelled really bad. The river was an improvement on the sewers, but not much, and he still hadn’t had a chance to get rid of his sewage-soaked clothing. He hadn’t dared spend his stolen money, yet; he was still too close to the city, and he was still ducking behind trees and hiding in haystacks from the Guard. He tried to remind himself to be grateful, that surely even this was better than hanging, but surely God couldn’t expect him to live like this for much longer.

Finally, on the third day, he reached a village. Pondering his options, he decided that he’d rather eat and get a fresh change of clothes than spend another night eating roots in the woods, even if the woods were safer. Someone had left their laundry hanging to dry on the village’s outskirts, and Brendon helped himself to a pair of trousers and a shirt, leaving a coin on their doorstep in payment. After all, he was reformed now.

Feeling much better about life with a fresh change of clothes, he made his way over to the local inn. “Innkeeper!” he said expansively, “give me a mug of your finest.”

The innkeeper, a short man with long hair and spectacles, said flatly, “We have ale and beer. Pick one.”

Crestfallen, Brendon asked, “Which is more expensive?” He had hoped for something really special, champagne or cordial or something, but never let it be said that he couldn’t make the best out of limited opportunities.

“Ale.”

“I’ll have that, then,” said Brendon with a sigh.

The innkeeper looked at him with a vaguely skeptical expression, but said only, “Do you want something to eat, too?”

He tried to look casual, but his stomach’s growling gave away any chance he had at hiding his hunger, and he said, “Some bread and cheese, please.”

“All right.” He pulled the ale out from under the counter and poured it and took a small loaf of rye bread and a lump of cheese from a cupboard.

Brendon paid him and dug into the bread and cheese, his good mood entirely restored. “This is wonderful!” he said to the innkeeper. “The best bread I’ve ever tasted!”

“Glad to hear it,” said the innkeeper with a snort and the vaguest hint of a smile.

“And obviously, everyone else in town thinks so, too!” said Brendon, gesturing hugely towards the full dining room of the inn.

The innkeeper nodded with a thoughtful frown. “Yeah, we’ve been doing some pretty good business over the last few days.” With that, he retreated to the back room, and Brendon could hear him and another man having a whispered conversation.

In no mood for eavesdropping on furtive conversations, he shook his still mostly-full purse. “Next round’s on me!” he declared, drawing stares from the room’s patrons. “I’d like to propose a toast!”

“Would you now?” said a tall man who was sitting on a bench against the wall, nursing a mug of beer. He smirked in a way that Brendon found vaguely unpleasant.

“Yes!” he said firmly. “Yes, I would!” Raising his mug and ignoring the voice within him telling him not to be an idiot, he said, “I’d like to propose a toast to an incredibly impressive man, one who’s seen the dungeons of Aquila from the inside and lived to tell the tale.”

“I’ve seen the dungeons of Aquila from the inside,” said the tall man. “So has any guard, and so have a number of stonemasons and carpenters and blacksmiths, and so have many of the Bishop’s administrators.”

“Yes, but that’s not impressive at all!” exclaimed Brendon in frustration. “I’m talking about a prisoner, someone who was locked up inside the dungeons and escaped!”

“Oh,” said the tall man. “Someone like yourself, then?”

“Ye—I mean, no, no, of course not, I never….” _Damn it!_ It was too late to undo the damage his careless tongue had already done; the tall man stood up, his dark cloak sweeping aside to reveal the crimson uniform of the Guard, and Brendon mentally kicked himself. _Why can’t I ever keep my stupid mouth shut?_ A number of others in the dining room also stood up to display their uniforms, and some were already drawing their swords. A few of the inn’s other customers glared with disgust before ducking quickly out, and Brendon wished to God he’d had the sense to be among them.

“If you’d stuck to the woods, Urie,” said the tall man, who had to be their captain or something, “you might have stood a chance. But then I guess you wouldn’t have provided me with all this free entertainment this morning.”

“Guess not!” said Brendon, trying to smile jauntily at the man. “I’ve also been known to do a little singing and dancing—I mean, if I hadn’t been such a great pickpocket, I might have started my own puppet show or become an actor or maybe--”

“You really can’t stop yourself, can you?” said the captain, shaking his head. “Get him,” he said in a profoundly uninterested tone.

A huge, dark-skinned man and a thin woman with pale blonde hair—and since when did they let women join the Guard, Brendon wondered—moved to either side of him, and the big man put a massive hand on Brendon’s shoulders. Overwhelmed by terror and the despair of having all his efforts come to nothing, Brendon did the first thing he could think of, and spit out a mouthful of ale into the man’s face.

By some small miracle, the ale hit him in the eyes and he shouted in pain, throwing an arm across his eyes. The woman reached out a hand to grasp Brendon, but he ducked under a table and started crawling. Frightened inn patrons were running out, now, leaving Brendon no one to hide behind, and he felt a little bad for the innkeeper. He hoped everyone had already paid, at least.

The Guard were trying to push tables out of the way in an effort to get at him. Brendon spotted a pair of legs at the end of his table and, turning over onto his back, he kicked. The man fell over with a curse, and Brendon darted out from under the table and jumped on top of it. He kicked out at a few more Guard as he jumped across the tables towards the door, before abruptly changing directions; the huge man was blocking the door, his sword drawn, and he didn’t look at all pleased.

“Hey,” said a voice from behind the bar. Brendon turned to see the innkeeper sticking his head out around the counter. “There’s another exit out the back.”

He knew he’d liked that innkeeper! He darted around the bar, following the innkeeper to a door next to a staircase. The innkeeper pointed to the door while scrambling up the staircase himself, and Brendon lost no time.

Unfortunately, there were a lot more of the Bishop’s Guard than there was of Brendon, and the tall captain had evidently decided that on the off-chance Brendon made it out of the building, he might as well send some men outside. The blonde woman grabbed him in a chokehold as soon as he stepped outside.

Brendon, still bursting with nervous energy and not willing to give up yet, grabbed her arm, hoping to use her sword against her own comrades. Since she was strong and Brendon had no skill with the sword whatsoever, though, he only succeeded in slicing a shallow cut across the captain’s face.

“Oh my God!” Brendon cried involuntarily. He’d had to defend himself with his fists before, but he’d never actually hurt anyone with a knife or sword, and the shocking suddenness of the red blood welling from the captain’s face made him feel a little sick. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to--”

 _“Stop. Talking,”_ said the captain, all amusement gone from his face. “Maja, Travis, hold him still. Ryland, you can do the honors.”

The huge man and the blonde woman each gripped one of Brendon’s arms and shoulders, so tightly they felt numb, and another guard, who would have been quite handsome if it weren’t for his somewhat malicious smile, drew his sword and--

Oh, God, this was it—

He brought it around, and—

There was a strange hissing noise and Ryland dropped his sword and fell to the ground, clutching at the crossbow bolt that was suddenly protruding from his arm. Brendon, dizzy with shock and unsure what had just happened, blinked a few times and looked over to where the arrow seemed to have come from.

A small but sturdily-built man with a round face and sharp blue eyes, dressed entirely in black, held a crossbow trained in the general direction of Brendon and the cluster of Guard. Without any hesitation, he sent another bolt flying into the chest of another guard and, giving Brendon a cold expression, said, “You. Go away.”

Hardly about to argue with an armed man who’d just shot two men and rescued him from almost certain death, Brendon pulled himself out of the considerably loosened grips of Travis and Maja and stumbled past the Guard and the crossbow man before breaking into a slightly shaky run.

God had saved him _again._ Clearly Brendon was going to have to be a bit better about the whole “stealing” thing, because surely even Brendon’s luck was going to run out soon.

***

Spencer threw a glance over his shoulder, looking to see which direction Urie ran off to, but he didn’t let himself watch for too long; after all, he had some of the best of the Bishop’s Guard to deal with.

Saporta was staring at him with a mixture of loathing and triumph, and Spencer wondered once more how he had _ever_ felt safe having this man at his back. “Well,” Saporta said casually, looking at Spencer but apparently addressing a man standing behind him. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Nate. You told me he was back. ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ I said. ‘There’s no way Spencer Smith would come within a hundred miles of Aquila now. Even he’s not that stupid.’ Well, never let it be said that I didn’t admit when I was wrong. Sorry about demoting you—you’re a lieutenant again.”

“Thanks,” said Nate.

One of the other guards thrust his sword towards Spencer, and he automatically parried it, but the strike hadn’t been a violent one—more of a sparring blow. “Captain Smith,” said the guard, lowering his sword, and Spencer would recognize that round, friendly face anywhere.

“Patrick!” Spencer exclaimed, unable to keep the pleasure out of his voice. Though they were on opposite sides now, Patrick Stump had always been a good friend to him, and a trustworthy soldier, one of the few to remain loyal to him after the Bishop had excommunicated him and Ryan.

“What did we say about addressing traitors as ‘Captain,’ Stump?” asked Saporta in a conversational tone. “Didn’t we agree it wasn’t a good idea?” And without warning, he shoved Patrick forward, impaling him on Spencer’s sword.

Spencer watched, horrified, as Patrick slid backwards, Spencer’s sword sticking out of a jagged wound in his abdomen. Without thinking, he punched Saporta in the face, and the taller man fell back.

The fight was on, now. The rest of the Guard—mostly Saporta’s cronies, Spencer noted—moved forward, weapons drawn. Spencer smacked one in the face with the flat of his dagger, and the other man stopped to stem the gush of blood from his nose. Another one was easily dispatched by shoving him into the inn’s water trough, and Spencer thought with some vicious satisfaction that clearly training standards for the Guard had gone down since Saporta’s tenure began.

Then Travis drew his sword, and Spencer felt a jolt of alarm. McCoy was slower than him, but he could put a lot more force behind his blows, and he was as well-trained with the sword as any man. Spencer himself had seen to that. And now that Spencer was without his sword—

The innkeeper or one of his servants had set a pile of rubbish on fire, probably some hours before. It had almost burnt itself out, but some embers at the bottom still glowed red-hot, and Spencer grabbed a long stick from the inn’s wood-pile and stuck it into the coals, setting the stick aflame. He thrust the burning torch into McCoy’s face, and the other man jumped back. Taking advantage of his distraction, he kicked Travis’s legs out from under him. Maja was close behind, her expression fierce; Spencer darted past her defences and struck her on the head with the butt of the torch, hard. She fell back, dazed and clutching her forehead. Their best fighters more or less taken out, the rest of the Guard stumbled back, leaving their captain, who seemed to have recovered from Spencer’s earlier blow, defenseless. Moving quickly, Spencer kicked Saporta into the trash fire and ran over to check on Patrick.

He was breathing shallowly, clearly in great pain, but he managed a weak smile as Spencer drew near. “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again,” he said quietly.

“Well, I certainly wish it had been under different circumstances,” said Spencer, knowing he sounded cold and hating himself for it.

Patrick laughed; it sounded more like a cough. “I…I believe I have something of yours,” he said, inclining his head towards the sword jutting out of him.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer began, but Patrick cut him off.

“Not your fault. Listen, don’t worry about me. The innkeeper’s a friend of mine.” His voice was getting weaker now, and Spencer had to strain to hear him say, “Go. Get out of here. Before the others put out the flames on Saporta’s ass.”

“Right,” said Spencer with what was probably a sorry excuse for a smile. As gently as he could, he pulled the sword out of Patrick’s gut. The other man didn’t scream, he just twitched slightly, which Spencer thought was probably a bad sign. Still, he was right; Spencer did need to leave as soon as humanly possible. After all, he didn’t just have his own life to worry about, but Ryan’s as well.

With one final salute towards Patrick, Spencer ran to jump on Goliath’s back and gallop off in the direction he had seen the thief run before. Urie hadn’t gotten very far, but then, he was on foot, and undoubtedly his confrontation with the Guard, which Spencer had heard from quite a ways off, had exhausted him.

Urie’s head jerked around, and Spencer could see his eyes widening as he cried, “No! God, why me?” His pace increased, but he was still no match for Goliath, and within the space of less than a minute Spencer was close enough to reach down, grasp Urie by the back of his tunic, and hoist him onto Goliath’s back.

“Please, please don’t hurt me,” Urie was babbling. “I swear, I don’t have anything worth stealing, which, by the way, I’ve given up now, so you don’t have to worry about that—and I won’t tell anyone about you shooting the Bishop’s men! Who would I tell?”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” said Spencer, grimly amused. “I’m actually helping you as we speak.”

“What?” Urie turned to look behind them, where a couple of red-garbed figures were riding in pursuit. “Oh,” he said. “Thanks, then.”

Spencer couldn’t help but laugh. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ryan whirling about in the sky. He darted into one of the guards’ faces with a shriek, and Spencer heard a cry of pain. The other guard stopped, staring in dumb horror, and Ryan took his pause as an opportunity to fly at his horse. Both guards turned and galloped away, and Ryan circled triumphantly in the sky before landing on Spencer’s shoulder.

“Ooh,” said Urie, sounding inordinately pleased. “A battle hawk.”

“He’s considerably more than that,” said Spencer curtly, hoping to discourage further chatter.

Apparently, Urie couldn’t take a hint. “I’m Brendon, by the way,” he said. “Brendon Urie. I guess you think I’m pretty ungrateful, running away from you just then, but really, I honestly appreciate your saving me back there. That was pretty splendid, the way you just shot those guards. I want to learn how to use a crossbow. Is it hard? It looks easier than the long bow, but I’ve always heard it’s really hard to load.”

“You’re welcome,” said Spencer, deliberately ignoring the end of Urie’s monologue. “I’m Spencer Smith, formerly captain of the Bishop’s Guard.” Urie opened his mouth to respond, but before any words could come out, Spencer said, “And I’m very tired from saving your life just now, so if we could save the talking for some other time, I’d be much obliged to you.”

They rode for several minutes in silence, and then Urie said in a small voice, “Um. Captain Smith? If I could just sit up, maybe….” He was still slung across the front of Spencer’s saddle like a sack of potatoes.

Spencer looked behind them; the guards either had stopped following them, or he, Urie and Ryan were far enough ahead that they were no longer visible. Either way, it would probably be worthwhile for Urie to get into a better position on the horse, as they had a long way to travel. “All right,” he said, and indicated to Goliath with a slight tug of the reins that he should stop.

“Thanks!” said Urie brightly, scrambling down from the horse. Spencer wondered if perhaps this whole thing was a mistake. He couldn’t imagine this man having the subtlety to sneak out of a party undetected, much less the famed dungeons of Aquila. Perhaps this idea of his, like so many others, would end in failure.

Ryan pecked the top of his head lightly. Spencer wasn’t sure if that was meant to be comforting or admonishing, but neither option made him feel much better.

***

Spencer Smith, Brendon had decided, was a strange man. He talked to his hawk as if it were a person and seemed determined to treat Brendon as if he weren’t there at all. Brendon was actually used to that kind of treatment from people who had money and breeding and knew how to use swords and things, but not from people who had saved him at considerable risk to their own lives. Plus, who attacked the Bishop’s Guard like that? Brendon didn’t really think he was simply a former commander who was jealous and out for revenge; his purpose in confronting them had really seemed to be just to extricate Brendon. But why? What would a man like him need with a man like Brendon, anyway? It was all very mysterious.

They rode in silence for what seemed like forever to Brendon, who couldn’t for the life of him figure out where they were going. Sometimes he thought they were headed in the general direction of Aquila, but every so often Spencer would lead his horse in the exact opposite direction, or lead them out of the way and then back again in a big looping pattern, until Brendon could barely figure out whether they were going north or south. He supposed it didn’t matter to him one way or another, as long as he avoided being dragged back to Aquila by the Guard.

As the sun began to set, the air grew cold, and Brendon, whose stolen clothes weren’t especially warm, began to shiver. The hawk screeched in what sounded to Brendon like a plaintive way, and Spencer jerked his head around, glaring. His expression softened almost immediately, and he said, “Perhaps we should be looking for a place to spend the night.”

Brendon just barely restrained himself from saying, “Oh, so you think that’s a good idea, do you?” Just barely. It was easy for Spencer to talk; unlike Brendon and the hawk, he had a warm woolen cloak and padded armor.

It was almost dark when they came across a small cluster of huts in the woods. Two men straightened up from chopping and gathering wood; one skinny with brown hair that hung around his face in airy wisps, the other slightly larger with thick dark hair. The larger man grasped his ax firmly in both hands and the smaller one picked up a stick as they saw Spencer and Brendon coming. Brendon, who’d had his own less-than-pleasant experiences with knights and could guess what the men must be thinking, hoped for everyone’s sake that Spencer didn’t have anything violent planned.

Apparently, he needn’t have worried. “Good evening. I’m Spencer,” Spencer said pleasantly enough. “My travelling companion and I have been riding all day, it’s getting cold out, and we wondered if we might stay the night with you.”

“We can pay,” piped up Brendon, who had rarely had the opportunity to say those words before and hoped that the sight of gold would convince the farmers that they weren’t ruffians or something.

Both Spencer’s eyes and those of the skinnier man were drawn sharply to the pouch of gold that Brendon pulled from his belt.

The larger man nodded slowly. “I’m Gerard Way,” he said, and then, pointing to the thinner man, “My brother Mikey. We don’t…we’ve already eaten for the night, but you can stay in the barn.” He pointed.

“Thanks,” said Spencer with a gracious nod, steering his huge black horse towards a little shed that could, Brendon supposed, be considered a barn. It wasn’t any nicer on the inside than on the outside, but at least the roof was intact and it blocked the wind somewhat. Brendon had slept in much worse places.

Spencer dismounted and, gesturing to Brendon to do the same, started detaching saddlebags. The hawk, evidently bored with this, flew out of the barn squawking, but Brendon was fascinated as Spencer pulled out a shining silver helmet and a change of clothes from the bags. The clothes were fancy and an impractical red color, and they didn’t look like the sort of thing a fighting man like Spencer would wear; maybe he’d gotten them for Brendon. Brendon dismissed this thought immediately, because why in the world would he buy Brendon clothing? Especially clothing like that.

Spencer tied up and fed and watered the horse, all without talking to Brendon. Growing restless (and hungry), Brendon said, “If you don’t have anything you want me to do, I think I’ll go to sleep.”

He turned around at this. “No,” he said. “Why don’t you gather some wood, and I’ll get our supper ready?” His gaze sharpening into a glare, he added, “And don’t take any of the Ways’. They have little enough here without our stealing any of it.”

Brendon supposed this was a jab at him, but he couldn’t argue with it. “I wouldn’t,” he said. “I don’t steal from poor people.” _I don’t steal **at all** anymore,_ he said silently, but he didn’t want to say this to Spencer, who didn’t have any reason to believe him. Besides, who knew what he’d have to do while traveling with such a mysterious man?

Spencer snorted. “I can’t imagine you steal much from anyone at all, then,” he said bitterly. “According to our dear Bishop, the country’s being punished for its sins, which is why so many are succumbing to poverty. Nothing whatsoever to do with His Grace’s taxes, of course.” He broke off and stared into the setting sun, his face inscrutable.

Brendon had nothing to say to that. He knew as well as anyone how poor most people were, and he suddenly felt terribly guilty about the stolen purse of coins in his pocket. He would leave it for Gerard and Mikey, he decided. Now that he was with Spencer, who was undoubtedly a great deal richer than most people Brendon met, he didn’t need his ill-gotten gains anymore.

He was on the verge of announcing this to Spencer when the other man seemed to shake off his ponderings and said, “I believe I said something about you gathering wood?”

“Right, right,” said Brendon, scrambling outside. Finding wood wasn’t exactly a difficult proposition, inasmuch as they were in a forest and all. Heading in the opposite direction from the Way brothers’ woodpile, he headed out into the dusky growth on the other side of the barn.

In the rapidly darkening gloom of the evening, Brendon regretted his easy acquiescence to Spencer’s request. It was cold and drizzling slightly, weighing Brendon’s clothes down with moisture and chilling him to the bone. What’s more, he could barely see his hand in front of his face to gather the wood, and every cracking stick made him jump. Why couldn’t Spencer have come with him, anyway? He was the one who had the sword. He could have at least lent Brendon his cloak. Not that he didn’t appreciate Spencer’s offer to prepare supper, but how much could he really get done without a fire, anyway? Well, maybe the cutting and things. Brendon hoped he made soup; a warm bowl of soup would go down nicely on a cold night like this.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but he’d wandered quite a ways from the barn when a twig snapped somewhere very close to him. He froze. Surely it had just been a small animal, a squirrel or something…another snap. Closer this time. “Hello?” Brendon said. His voice was swallowed by the forest, which suddenly seemed full of sinister noises. “Hello?” he said again. His only answer was a loud rustling of leaves only a few feet away from him.

Brendon felt the familiar tightness of fear in his chest. Surely all this adventure was turning him gray before his time—but there was no time to think about that. Hesitantly, he said, “I’m armed, you know!” and started walking quickly back in the direction he thought the barn was. Wouldn’t do to run, running would show whoever or whatever it was that it had frightened him.

Another twig cracked from right behind him, and he abruptly ceased to give a shit whether whatever it was knew that it had frightened him. It had. He dropped the wood—they could eat bread for supper, whatever—and ran as fast as he could. He hadn’t run this fast even when escaping from Aquila, his muscles burning, his lungs gasping, but he could still hear _something_ behind him, easily keeping pace with him.

Finally the barn appeared, a misshapen lump of a silhouette among the towering trees. Brendon never thought he’d be so glad to see the little mildewed shack. Mikey was standing around outside of it, and Brendon yelled “Master Way, there’s something--” He noticed mid-sentence that in his hands Mikey held Spencer’s silver helmet and Brendon’s money pouch, and he stopped for a moment, appalled. Perhaps he didn’t have any room to talk, being a thief himself, but at least he never tricked people by giving them his hospitality and **then** robbing them.

“Back off,” said Mikey, dropping the money and helmet into a sack by his feet and pulling out a long knife, its blade rusty but sharp-looking.

“Whoa, now,” said Brendon, unsure of where to go, what with knife-wielding highwaymen in front and mysterious forest monsters behind. “No need to hurt anyone—wait, Spencer, did you--”

“He’s not here,” said Mikey. His voice was steady, but his hand was shaking; if Brendon had to guess from his white-knuckled grip on his knife, he probably didn’t spend a lot of his time slitting men’s throats for the fun of it, so that was a little bit of a relief. Not much, though.

“Please,” said Brendon. “Take the money. That’s mine. You don’t need to….” It occurred to Brendon that when Spencer did return, he was going to think Brendon had stolen his helmet. Unless, of course, Brendon was dead by that point. “Don’t take Spencer’s helmet,” he got out, before the knife waving in his face shut him up.

“You think I don’t know what that helmet means? I’ve seen enough Guard in my time, I know their armor. Don’t act like I’m--” Mikey was sputtering now, with either rage or fear or possibly both. Brendon could scarcely understand what he was saying. “I know what the Guard do, our neighbor Frank’s farm— _burnt to the ground,_ and do you think they left him anything because he asked nicely?”

Brendon, facing death for the second time that day, thought of explaining that neither he nor Spencer were in the Guard, that they were in fact on the run from the Guard, and that neither of them were devotees of the Bishop’s system of taxation, from what he’d understood of his earlier conversation with Spencer. With Mikey’s rusty knife inches from his face, however, he was having trouble forming the words.

Suddenly, there was a terrible growling sound from behind him, and Mikey’s face, which had been mottled with anger, suddenly went pale and terrified. There was a split second in which Brendon thought that maybe he was producing an intimidating glare and wished Spencer was there to see it; then a huge black wolf was jumping over his shoulder and knocking Mikey to the ground.

Mikey and Brendon both yelled. The wolf was _enormous_ and ferocious-looking, its jaws only kept from Mikey’s throat by the arm he was using to fend it off. The knife had gone flying at some point. Brendon thought of looking for it, but there was no way he’d find it in the dark. Gerard came running out of the dilapidated hut opposite the barn, waving a torch.

“ _Mikey!_ ” he yelled. “Get off, get the hell off of him!” He was beating the wolf about the head with the torch, burning off patches of fur, but the wolf still seemed completely unwilling to let Mikey’s arm out of its mouth.

Brendon dashed back to the barn to find one of Spencer’s weapons. Whatever else Mikey had been up to, he wasn’t lying about Spencer being gone, and he hadn’t taken Spencer’s weapons. Brendon contemplated grabbing the crossbow and immediately discarded the idea, as he didn’t know how to use it and didn’t have time to figure it out. He grabbed the sword instead, though it was so heavy it was hard to carry.

“Hmm,” said a voice from a dark corner of the barn. “What are you doing with that?”

“Spencer!” Brendon cried, turning around, but the young man behind him dressed in the blood-red ruffled tunic wasn’t Spencer. He was taller, more slender, with dark eyes and a haughty expression. He was also beautiful. Brendon had never used the word to describe a man before, but he couldn’t think of anything else that quite encapsulated the pale elegance of the other man’s face.

Well, whoever this man was and however he looked, there was still a monstrous wolf outside about to devour their larcenous hosts, and Brendon wasn’t about to let that happen. “There’s a wolf!” he said. Then the thought occurred to him: “Do you know how to use a crossbow?”

“Oh,” said the other man airily, “I don’t think I’ll need that.” With that, he strolled outside, showing no signs that he particularly cared about the life-and-death struggle going on in front of the barn. “You,” he said coldly to Gerard, who was attempting to shove the torch in the wolf’s face without burning Mikey in the process, “stop that.”

The wolf let go of Mikey’s arm and turned its head around to gaze at the newcomer, and then, to Brendon’s shock, it jumped off of Mikey and ran over to the lovely man, wagging its tail and barking like a pet dog greeting its master.

“Don’t, you’ll soil the tunic,” the man said when the wolf attempted to put its paws on his chest, but he crouched down and wrapped his arms around its neck, allowing it to lick affectionately at his face.

Gerard crossed himself. “Who in God’s name is that?” he asked Brendon, his face pale and his voice bewildered and exhausted.

“You’ve got me there,” said Brendon. Mikey said nothing but remained prone on the ground, breathing hard and clutching his bleeding arm. “Maybe,” Brendon offered, “we’re all dreaming. Maybe this never happened at all—I mean, it all seems pretty unlikely, doesn’t it?” Mikey looked at him in disbelief, and Brendon mentally conceded that he certainly didn’t look like a man in the throes of a dream, but rather a man who had just had his arm chewed on by a wolf.

“Yes, that’s right, you’re dreaming,” said the stranger in a dry tone. “So why don’t you all go back inside and get to sleep?”

Brendon felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The stranger was still cuddling with the wolf, looking for all the world as if the two of them were close personal friends. Gerard and Mikey obviously didn’t know him, and there weren’t any other signs of habitation in the forest as far as Brendon could see. Although it was dark, and their arrival here seemed ages ago to him, Brendon thought he recognized the red tunic the stranger was wearing as the one Spencer had pulled out of his saddlebags earlier. Something strange and maybe even otherworldly was going on. “God,” he murmured under his breath, “what have you gotten me into now? Please, Lord—it was hard enough fighting my _earthly_ troubles.”

Gerard shuddered, crossing himself again, and began walking in slow, reluctant steps towards the stranger. On his way, he picked up the discarded sack holding the money and the helmet, and when he stepped within arms’ reach of the stranger, he held the bag out in offering. “Please,” he said. “We’re sorry. I know there’s no excuse, but—times are hard, we have more mouths to feed than just us.” He bowed his head. “We’re sorry,” he said again.

The stranger raised his eyebrows at Gerard, looking amused. “Oh, is that what set him off?” He peered in. “Oh. Well, if it were up to me, I’d let you keep the silly helmet, but I suppose I shouldn’t go giving away things that aren’t mine. Hmm.” He dug around in his pockets and pulled out the most ornately wrought necklace Brendon had ever seen, resplendent with opals and emeralds and twisting patterns of silver and gold. If he’d ever seen such a thing in a pocket before—in his pre-reform days, of course—he would have stolen it in a heartbeat, not to sell, but just to look at. “Here,” said the stranger, taking the bag and handing the necklace to Gerard. “It was my mother’s, but she’s certainly not here to wear it. That ought to feed a few of your mouths.” Returning his attention to the wolf, he said, “If that’s all, you may go.”

It was as clear a dismissal as Brendon had ever heard, and he helped Gerard get Mikey back to the house. It wasn’t much nicer than the barn, but there was an extra bed—Gerard, after bandaging Mikey’s arm, had crawled into bed with him, wrapping himself fully-clothed around his brother. Brendon lay on Gerard’s abandoned bed, so excited and confused he was sure he would never get to sleep, but the day’s adventures had obviously taken more out of him than he realized, because the next time he opened his eyes, the sun had risen and Mikey and Gerard were offering him breakfast.

***

The next day, Brendon and Spencer left without much fanfare into a cold, rainy morning. Gerard and Mikey would hardly meet Spencer’s eyes, and he for his part didn’t seem especially interested in talking to them, either. After a meager breakfast of porridge and milk, Spencer saddled his horse again and, Brendon seated behind him and the hawk on his shoulder, they set off through the woods again. Brendon thought he heard Gerard get up after them to close and bar the door, and he imagined that he and Mikey were making signs against evil. He couldn’t blame them; the events of last night were pretty far beyond his own understanding, too.

Spencer seemed moody this morning, not at all interested in being bothered, but Brendon couldn’t help himself. “So, where’d you go last night? You said you were going to make dinner.”

Spencer actually turned his upper body around in order to frown at him. “I laid out bread and cheese and dried meat in the barn. Didn’t you see it?”

He hadn’t, but then, he hadn’t spent much time in the barn. “No, I was a little too busy fighting off wolves and stopping us from getting robbed and meeting mysterious noblemen who just kind of popped out of nowhere.”

Spencer blinked at this, but didn’t seem to think Brendon was insane. Instead he slowed the horse’s pace to a walk and said, “Explain, with more words, and more slowly.”

Brendon relayed the events of the night to him as clearly as he could without getting too excited. When he came to the red-clad stranger, though, he couldn’t help himself. “It was like an angel or something just appeared,” he said. “Or maybe a devil. I don’t know. But he had these long fingers, and really nice eyes, and a sort of way about him, you know?”

He expected Spencer to roll his eyes and tell him to get on with the story, but instead the other man smiled dreamily—not an expression Brendon could have pictured, had he been asked to, but one that softened the lines of his face and made him look almost cherubic. “I know what you mean. I see a man like that every night in my dreams.” He must have noticed Brendon’s incredulous look, because he laughed. “What, you think I don’t dream?”

“No, sir,” said Brendon, taken aback. “I mean, I’m sure you do. You just don’t seem like the type who would think about your dreams that much.”

“You’d be surprised, Urie,” said Spencer. His hawk was sitting on his gloved wrist and he was stroking it as he spoke, gazing out into nothing. It gave Brendon a fierce look, as if daring to speak further. He didn’t, but he realized that Spencer had never answered his question as to where he was that night.

They didn’t make it very far that day, in whichever direction it was that Spencer wanted them to go. It rained all morning, and when it stopped around noon, the wind had picked up and the temperature dropped so precipitously that Spencer stopped their little party in the shelter of a rocky outcropping—probably more for the bird’s sake than Brendon’s. It was a strange autumn, Brendon reflected. Too cold, too soon. It had actually been a strange couple of years, weatherwise.

They dismounted and Brendon tied up the horse at Spencer’s request while Spencer found a relatively warm little cranny in the rock for the bird to sit. Brendon thought Spencer’s continued preoccupation with the hawk’s welfare a little strange, but then, there was a lot about Spencer that was a little strange. For instance, he had named his huge black horse “Goliath,” which, in Brendon’s opinion, was just asking to have it injured or killed by some little boy called David with a slingshot.

He was explaining this to Goliath in great detail, offering the horse sympathy with regards to its obvious doom, when Spencer straightened up with a determined expression on his face. “I’m going to look around and make sure we haven’t been followed by any of the Bishop’s men,” he said. “You should cut some firewood.”

Brendon stared at him. “Why do I always have to cut the firewood? Why don’t I go look around and you cut some firewood?” At the forbidding look Spencer was giving him, Brendon quickly added, “Besides, with all this rain, the wood’s bound to be wet.”

Spencer sighed, as if he were the long-suffering one. “Well, we can leave it in the alcove to dry a bit, and a little smoke won’t kill us. We need to build a fire,” he said. “It’s freezing, and your clothes aren’t nearly warm enough. No use in having you freeze to death.”

“What use am I to you if I _don’t_ freeze to death?” Brendon asked. He had yet to understand what Spencer needed him for, unless it was really that he was just too lazy to gather his own damn firewood.

“We’ll get to that,” said Spencer in a low voice. He looked around. “Hmm. I should have asked if the Ways could spare an ax. There isn’t much loose wood about.” He sighed. “I suppose we’ll just have to make do with what you can find.”

“I could use your sword to cut some wood,” Brendon suggested. It was heavier than some axes Brendon had used, and sharper. In fact, now that he thought of it, he didn’t know why more people didn’t cut their wood with swords.

Spencer stared at him for a long moment, blue eyes wide and disbelieving. Finally, he said, “Are you _mad?_ ”

Brendon was actually a bit hurt. He’d thought it a fine idea.

Spencer, however, seemed indignant at the very thought. “This sword has been in my family for five generations! It was given to my great-great-grandfather by the king when he granted us the title of nobility! No Smith carrying this sword has ever been defeated in battle!”

“All right,” muttered Brendon. “Forget I said anything, Captain Smith.”

Spencer stopped his ranting and took several deep breaths. The hawk pecked at its shoulder and he scratched its head, frowning as if in deep thought. Finally, he said, “Listen, Urie. Brendon. I…I need to explain a few things to you.”

“Honest to God, sir, it was just an idea!” cried Brendon. “I just thought it’d be easier to cut wood with a sharp thing than without one! I meant no offense!”

Spencer actually laughed at that—sure, it was a dry laugh without a lot of amusement, but it was nonetheless a laugh—and shook his head. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, and he drew his sword. “Come here.” With some reluctance, Brendon walked over towards him. To his relief, Spencer wasn’t holding out the sharp end of his sword but the hilt, revealing a trio of enormous jewels set in the metal.

“This sword basically tells my family’s history. This jewel,” he said, pointing to a sapphire the size of a bird’s egg, “represents our ascension to the nobility for services to the Crown.” He moved his hand to indicate the biggest pearl Brendon had ever seen. “This one represents our alliance with the Holy Church in Rome. That’s why I was the captain of the Bishop’s Guard, by the way—it’s basically an inherited position.” He smiled, a mix of self-deprecation and pride, and moved to the final stone, a slightly smaller but incredibly well-cut diamond. “My father got this one in the Holy Land, fighting Saracens.” Finally, his hand hovered over what looked like a huge hole in the hilt, a place where a jewel was obviously supposed to go but which currently lay empty. “This…this is where you come in.”

“I don’t understand,” said Brendon with a frown. “Do you want me to steal something to go in there? Because honestly, I have no idea where I’d get a jewel that big, and besides, I’ve given up stealing.”

“No,” said Spencer. “It’s nothing like that. It’s my job to fill that space—every generation has its own mission that comes with its own responsibilities and rewards. I only meant that you’re a part of that. My mission, that is.”

Well, that wasn’t vague or anything. Brendon wasn’t sure if he felt hurt or vindicated, being told that he hadn’t been rescued for his own sake but for the sake of some service he could provide Spencer. He was also still unclear as to just what that service would be. “I don’t understand. What’s your mission?” he asked.

“I need to kill a man.” Spencer paused, as if waiting for a response from Brendon.

Brendon, who really was growing frustrated with Spencer’s dramatics, waved his hand in a gesture of impatience. “Which man?” he asked. “Obviously not just _any_ man, because you probably already _did_ that when you attacked the Bishop’s guard. Clearly this is a _special_ man that needs killing.”

“It is indeed,” said Spencer with a grim smile. “It’s the Bishop of Aquila.”

There was a pause then, a shocked silence both in the air between the two men and in Brendon’s mind, before a flood of mixed desperation and irritation filled Brendon’s consciousness. It was his turn now to ask, “Are you _mad_? You wouldn’t be able to even get _into_ Aquila without the Guard killing you.”

“Precisely why I need your help.” Spencer was damnably calm, as if he had no idea why Brendon might have any objections to going back to Aquila. “You’re the only man I’ve ever heard of to escape from the city without detection, and so I thought you would be the best man to get to help me enter Aquila under the Guard’s nose.”

“ _What?_ This is all because I got out of the dungeons?” Was he supposed to lead Spencer, horse and hawk and all, through the sewers? Crawl with them all through yet another sewage-filled drain? “That was luck! And possibly some divine help! I didn’t have a map or anything, I just crawled around the sewers in a direction I thought could conceivably be ‘out’ until I ended up in the middle of a river!”

Spencer’s face hardened and his blue eyes grew cold. “I have waited for _two years_ for a chance, some sort of sign. As far as I’m concerned, this is it—you. You’re my sign from God.”

 _That would be a terribly cruel trick to play on me, God, leading me out of Aquila just to put me in the hands of someone who wants to drag me back there._ Luckily for Brendon, he didn’t believe a word of it. In what world would God want to help a man kill one of his Bishops, even a particularly awful one? “Sir,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, “I talk to God all the time, and he never mentioned you. There’s…” He wasn’t sure how to voice this without causing offense, but then again, that hadn’t ever stopped him before. “There’s something really strange about you, some sort of supernatural… _thing_ , and I don’t want to have anything to do with it. And….” Here his voice grew pleading, and he went with it; if Spencer understood how desperately he did _not_ want to go back to Aquila, maybe he’d listen. “They’ll kill me if they catch me in Aquila. They will. And they’ll kill you, too. Going back would be a stupid, insane thing to do, and I’m not doing it.”

“No?” said Spencer, too casually, with one eyebrow raised.

“No,” Brendon said, more firmly. “I owe you. I know I do. You saved my life, and if you ever need anything else, I’d be glad to give it to you. Even if you need me to steal a stupid jewel for your sword. But I’m not going back to Aquila. I’m not.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and said, “You’ll have to kill me first.”

Spencer, looking as grim as Brendon had ever seen him, said, “That could be arranged.” He was still holding the sword; it would just be the work of a momentary flick of the wrist to send it stabbing into Brendon. Brendon took a step backwards, looking carefully at Spencer. His face, which had looked so sweet when he was talking about dreams, was almost demonically fierce-looking, and he didn’t look like a man who’d regret for a minute killing Brendon. After all, he’d only saved his life in order to serve as his guide, and if Brendon couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do that, what use was he to Spencer?

Brendon tried to muster up a smile. “Right then,” he said. “Firewood.” He walked quickly away to the tall trees surrounding their rocky shelter, looking anywhere but at Spencer. After all, he thought, he could always run away when night fell and Spencer fell asleep. It wouldn’t be hard. Even if Brendon wasn’t good at sneaking himself back into cathedrals for suicide missions, he was pretty damned good at making his escape.

***

Gabe was boiling over with anger. It had been a long time since he’d lost control of himself so entirely, but then, it’d been a long time since he’d seen Spencer Smith. _Fucking Spencer Smith_. Even when the other man had been his captain, he’d had this veiled disdain for Gabe, this condescending way of telling him that he would never be trusted, and his stupid catamite Ross was even worse. It made him angry, seeing Smith again, seeing a competent soldier like Stump demonstrate once _again_ that while Gabe was a great fighter and a good commander and willing to do what needed to be done, regardless of the price, he still wasn’t the “legitimate” captain. Whatever the hell that meant.

It wasn’t ever a good idea to walk into Beckett’s luxurious quarters angry. Pretty much everything about the Bishop angered and frightened Gabe at times, and dealing with him tended to make Gabe’s temper even worse. The one thing about Beckett, though, was that he hated Smith as much as—maybe even more than—Gabe did. That had drawn them together in the beginning, and Gabe had the feeling that once again, it would be the thing that kept them from killing each other.

When he strode into the Bishop’s gardens, still bleeding from his cheek, he wasn’t at all surprised to see the Bishop indulging himself in a little carnal pleasure. Gabe stood back to admire the boy and girl currently fulfilling His Grace’s bodily needs, for once feeling more impressed than jealous. You had to hand it to Beckett; whatever his faults, he had exquisite taste in human flesh.

When Beckett saw Gabe waiting for him, he dismissed the boy and girl with an almost bored wave. They pouted, but left without further complaint, leaving a somewhat disappointed Gabe to gaze after them.

“So,” said Beckett without preamble, his dark eyes unusually focused. “Did you find Urie?”

“Well,” said Gabe. “We did.”

Beckett’s mouth tightened, and Gabe felt a twinge of fear in his stomach. “But?” he said. ‘There’s obviously a ‘but,’ because you aren’t handing me Urie’s head right now.”

“I would be, if our old friend hadn’t turned up.” Gabe took pleasure in the way that Beckett stiffened, the way the anger in his face paled to real fear and loathing. Gabe always liked people better when they were afraid, even if it wasn’t him causing the fear.

“Smith?” the Bishop asked shortly. “He’s back?”

“He’s back,” confirmed Gabe with a nod. “We had Urie in our grasp, but the dashing former captain jumped in, shot a few of my men, and ran away with our pickpocket on his horse.”

Beckett frowned. “But then he must…he must want Urie to sneak him into the city. What else would Smith want with a rat like Urie?” Without waiting for an answer to that question, he asked another one: “Saporta, did he have a hawk?”

“Who, Smith or Urie?” He couldn’t believe Beckett was asking about a stupid bird.

“Smith, you fool!” Beckett wasn’t often roused to passion, but when he was, it was quite a sight to see. Gabe had a feeling that if someone were to kindle true anger in him, he would be capable of far more than the petty tortures and tyrannies Gabe had witnessed.

It didn’t take long to think of what Beckett was referring to. Morris and Bryar, idiots that they were, had complained to Gabe of being attacked by a hawk that had later followed Urie and Smith. The bird was obviously Smith’s, because what pickpocket practiced falconry in his spare time? “There was a hawk,” said Gabe. “A vicious one.”

Beckett smiled at that. “He always did have…spirit.” His smile dissolving, he looked at Gabe with an expression of almost mad fervor. “You’re not to harm the hawk, do you understand? Not a feather on his wings. The day that hawk dies is the day I have a new Captain of the Guard hang your head in my gardens as a perch for my birds. Do you understand me?”

Gabe had no idea what had prompted this latest threat of Beckett’s, but he knew enough of the man and his cruelties to simply nod and say, “I understand.”

Beckett, apparently satisfied by this, stared at a point over Gabe’s head and said. “Smith. He needs to die. I know you wanted to do it before, and I held you back. I had greater tasks for you then. Now I don’t. Whatever you need, take it. Only kill him, and bring me back the hawk.”

“With pleasure, Your Grace,” Gabe said with a smile. Oh, God, to finally be given a free rein! It went against the grain with him to harbor feelings of affection for Beckett, but he couldn’t help the fierce gratitude he felt. It would almost be like the old days again, not worrying about maintaining order or pleasing an overbearing master, but just throwing his everything into the hunt.

As he left, the Bishop called out, almost casually, “Send the Butcher up to me.”

Gabe didn’t know what the fuck Beckett wanted with that freak, but he was too happy to care, and his response of, “Yes, of course, Your Grace,” was for once entirely sincere.

 

 _Sunday_

Brendon had long since grown tired of trying to figure out where he was. It had been bad enough when he was with Spencer, but on his own, he had the uncomfortable feeling that the Guard or some supernatural monster lurked behind every tree and rock, as if he were Theseus simply muddling around in a labyrinth until the Minotaur jumped out to devour him. Of course, an uncertain death was better in Brendon’s book than a certain one, and so he kept up his trudging, hoping that whichever direction he was going, it wasn’t north to Aquila.

Spencer had vanished before sunset again, saying he was going hunting for something to eat. He’d actually tied Brendon to a tree before he left—“Just in case,” the smug bastard had said—but there wasn’t a knot tied yet that Brendon Urie couldn’t get himself out of, and as soon as Spencer was out of sight and earshot in the dense woods, Brendon had wriggled out of his bonds and stolen away into the cold night.

After a few hours, his energy had given out—after all, it wasn’t like the previous night had been especially restful, either—and he tucked himself into a patch of tall grass behind a boulder on the grassy plains beyond the woods. He stayed awake for a while, listening to a wolf howl somewhere in the distance and keeping an eye out for Spencer, but finally he decided that, since he had no idea where he was going, Spencer probably wouldn’t either. Besides at this point the Guard were probably more interested in Spencer than him, so he thought he’d be fairly safe going to sleep. It wasn’t the most comfortable resting place he’d ever slept in, but it beat the hell out of the dungeons of Aquila.

Unfortunately, when he awoke he had a horrible pinching cramp in his neck and the thin blonde from the Guard standing over him with a grim smile. Before he could muster the presence of mind to kick her or run away or something, she’d already captured his arm in an iron grip and was dragging him over to her friend, the large man in whose eye Brendon had spit his ale.

“Look who I found, Travis,” the woman said. “An old friend of yours.”

“Well, well, well,” said the man, stepping forward to loom over Brendon. “We meet again, and this time, the drinks are on me.” He paused with a mock-thoughtful expression, and said, “Oh, wait, it seems as if the drinks ended up on me last time, as well.”

Despite his fear, Brendon couldn’t help but giggle at that. Travis cracked a wry smile, but his voice was serious as he asked, “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, where’s Smith?”

“Smith?” Brendon asked, widening his eyes and putting on what he felt was his best expression of youthful innocence. No matter what crazy ideas Spencer had, he’d still saved Brendon’s life, and Brendon wasn’t about to throw him to the Guard even to save his own skin. “Who do you mean?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said the blonde woman flatly. “We saw him ride away from the inn with you on his horse, so you obviously know who we’re talking about.”

“Oh, _that_ Smith—angry little man, nice hips, big black horse?” He kept his tone light and airy, hoping they would think he didn’t care enough about the answer to lie. Or else they’d think he was really stupid and thus incapable of helping them, which worked too, even if it was less healthy for Brendon’s ego. It wasn’t as if his ego mattered at all, now.

The woman raised her eyebrows, but said only, “Yes, _that_ Smith.”

Brendon shrugged. “Not a clue. He chased me off pretty soon after he saved me.”

“You’re full of shit,” said the woman, but Travis shook his head.

“Now, now, Maja, it’s not very polite to call our guest a liar, is it?” He leveled a calm gaze at Brendon, who involuntarily gulped. “I’m sure our young friend here will be perfectly willing to tell us which way Captain Smith went when the two of them parted ways.”

“Of course,” said Brendon, his mind working furiously. Travis was clearly looking for something specific here. A direction, a final destination, a purpose? _Think fast, think fast--_ he was obviously already farther north than he’d been the last time he’d met these guards, and why would he head back to Aquila on his own? Maybe…if Spencer was going south, and Brendon was going north to get away from him…but why on earth would they believe that? Why on earth would they believe anything that came out of Brendon’s mouth? _Aha! That’s it!_ “North,” Brendon found himself saying. “He was riding north.”

“Lying son-of-a-bitch,” said Maja scornfully, giving Brendon’s arm a painful shake. “You want my opinion, we wait here, for Gabe. Wasn’t he supposed to come with reinforcements and scouts within the day?”

“Yeah, but knowing Gabe, he might have gotten sidetracked. I don’t like sitting out in the open like this.” Travis gazed at Brendon with a contemplative expression and finally said. “Let’s take the Aquila road north. Worst comes to worst, we meet up with Gabe a little earlier than we planned.”

“I don’t like it,” Maja said crossly, but Travis smiled at her.

“Have a little faith, huh?” He put a hand on her shoulder. It seemed less like a show of camaraderie and encouragement than a caress.

She sighed. “All right. To Aquila, then.”

 _Damn it!_ Why couldn’t Travis have listened to Maja, instead of the other way around? So much for outwitting the pair of them. Travis motioned to another man who took Brendon from Maja and bound his hands tightly together. Brendon didn’t even bother to struggle. He was tired and sore and it seemed like no matter what he did, somebody wanted to kill him.

At least they weren’t executing him immediately this time. Travis stuffed a gag in his mouth and hoisted him up on a horse behind the man who’d tied his hands. It wasn’t especially comfortable, but it beat the hell out of being dead. Spencer, though…Brendon hoped fervently that the other man had slept in, or had kept on going north without doubling back to look for Brendon, or was just staying away from the main roads. He didn’t know what he’d do if Spencer died because he, Brendon, had betrayed him. Probably go back to the monastery for the rest of his life or something, somewhere where he couldn’t hurt anyone else.

It took more effort than Brendon had realized to stay on horseback with his hands tied, and for a long while he tried to forget about Spencer as he concentrated on balancing on the horse’s jerkily-moving backside. He wasn’t accustomed to the amount of riding he’d been doing over the last few days, and his thighs were so stiff that a couple of times he couldn’t convince them to grip the horse. He wondered, if he just slid right off, if anyone would notice. The Guard, having secured him, seemed to sink into a kind of grim, determined focus on the road ahead of them. Undoubtedly, Brendon thought, a former captain of the Guard would be a much bigger feather in their caps than a relatively anonymous pickpocket. The thought made him a little sick.

A harsh scream tore the air. Brendon (and, he noticed, a few of the Guard) shuddered, and Travis made a sign against evil. Maja, however, frowned and pointed to the sky. “Look,” she said. “A hawk. Smith’s?”

“Good eye, Maja!” Travis said, shedding the solemn expression he had worn for most of their trip for one of excited anticipation. “Weapons at the ready, and let’s keep the noise down.” He peered over the horizon and said firmly, “That patch of brush on the northeast. He must be hiding behind it.” A cluster of men took out crossbows, and Maja drew her sword, smiling fiercely.

Brendon felt every muscle in his body tighten. _Spencer…_. He had to warn him, he had to help him, he had to do something! He felt around the gag, which until now he had ignored, with his tongue. They hadn’t tied it around his face or anything, just shoved it in his mouth. Spitting it out wouldn’t be much trouble. The problem was when to yell. The man sitting in front of Brendon wouldn’t have any trouble killing him if he shouted out, nor, really, would any of the other men of the Guard. Oh, unless—as subtly as he could, Brendon started bringing his arms, which had been tied behind his back, over his head, and he took the gag out with slightly numb fingers. Taking a deep breath, he yelled, “Spencer, it’s an ambush!” At the same time, he threw his bound hands over his riding companion’s head and threw himself to one side, knocking them both off of the horse.

It was immediate chaos. The hawk screamed again, and as a couple of crossbow bolts found their way in Brendon’s direction—over the horse’s back, he thought smugly, nowhere near his position on the ground—one of the Guard bellowed in pain, and Brendon thought maybe Spencer had gotten off a bolt of his own. Brendon kneeled on his guard’s chest and pounded on his face with his bound fists until he thought the man had probably lost conciousness. (He didn’t want to look at the other man’s battered face, though, lest he lose what little food he had left in his stomach.)

Horses whinnied, and a guardsman fell off his horse near Brendon, a crossbow bolt in his stomach. Brendon felt a rumbling in the ground, and raised his head to see Goliath charging towards the rapidly disentegrating cluster of Guard. He grinned, satisfied. Now that Spencer saw the attack coming, the Bishop’s lackeys didn’t stand a chance.

“ _Regroup, regroup!_ ” shouted Maja angrily, and Travis thundered off towards Spencer brandishing a huge broadsword. Their swords clashed as they passed each other, but it didn’t look like either had wounded the other, so Brendon, who wanted to take advantage of his current state of being ignored, looked around for another place in the battle he could be useful and settled on a couple of archers who were aiming their bows in Spencer’s direction. Brendon scrabbled around until he found a huge rock, and, his hands still tied together, he hurled it overhead at them. It hit one of the archers in the back just as he was letting a bolt fly; he jerked back in pain and his arrow flew into the sky, hitting the hawk.

 _Shit_ , thought Brendon. He’d only known Spencer a few days and he already knew that he loved that hawk more than he loved most people. Still, it was only a hawk, and so Spencer’s guttural cry of despair at the hawk’s pained shriek came as a surprise even to Brendon. He didn’t even seem to notice when the second archer’s bolt found its way into his left shoulder, his absorption in the hawk’s descent was so complete.

Oh, God, had he blundered again? Brendon scrambled across the ground as the hawk fell, hoping at least to protect it from being trampled. The thing fell in a small clump of feathers on a grassy patch of heather, deadly silent. Probably dead.

The loss of the hawk enraged Spencer more than anything Brendon had seen. All the blood drained from him, making his eyes stand out like glittering metal in his bone-white face. With a cry of undiluted fury, he charged Goliath towards Travis and, in front of Brendon and Maja’s horrified eyes, ran him through.

The huge man wheeled his horse around, as if to attack again, but though the spirit may have been willing, the flesh was failing. Still grasping his sword, Travis slumped in his saddle. Even from a distance, Brendon could see his eyes close.

Maja, who’d been furiously dragging a couple of deserters back into the fray, froze. As her captives slid from her grasp and started dashing across the fields, Maja stared at Travis’s limp body with an expression of horror, her mouth opening and closing as if she were struggling to speak. Finally, she mounted her horse again and gave Spencer a look of such utter hatred that it made Brendon’s skin crawl. “Damn you to hell, Spencer Smith!” she shrieked, and to Brendon’s shock, he heard tears in her voice. With a few more harsh commands, she gathered the troops who hadn’t deserted or died and rode off—still north, Brendon noted, but not on the main road anymore. Travis’s horse followed behind, its master sagging on its back.

In the ensuing silence, Brendon decidedly _didn’t_ think about the pain in his side and back from where he had hit the ground when falling from the horse, and concentrated on cutting the chafing ropes around his wrists with a knife someone had let fall during the confusion. Having freed himself, he went quietly over to Spencer, who was kneeling on the ground, cradling the hawk in his arms. As Brendon drew closer, he could see the anguish in Spencer’s face, and it made his heart throb with guilt. He’d meant to save Spencer’s life, diverting the arrow, but the way Spencer looked now, he’d probably rather have died.

“He—he’s badly hurt,” said Spencer hoarsely. Brendon nodded mutely. The hawk was still alive, its blood-mussed chest rising and falling against Spencer’s body, but one of its wings dangled useless, the bolt having severed the muscle and tendon where wing met body. Even its eyes seemed to have less fight in them than usual.

His voice unsteady, Spencer said, “He needs help. A healer.”

“You need help too, sir,” said Brendon quietly. Blood didn’t show much on Spencer’s black clothes, but there was a crossbow sticking out of his shoulder and the area around it was wet, which, as far as Brendon was concerned, was a bad sign.

Spencer stared for a moment at the sun, which had started its descent in the west, and then shook his head. “I’ll be fine for now,” he said. “But I can’t ride. You’ll have to ride Goliath and get a healer. Take the hawk.”

“But….” Brendon looked around. There was no sign of habitation as far as the eye could see, only trees and meadows and rocky crags, all turning a gentle gold color in the early evening. “Where?”

“Listen carefully to me,” said Spencer, his voice as grim as it had been when he’d threatened to kill Brendon. “Take the smaller road to the left. You’ll find a ruined castle. There’s a priest there named Jon Walker. Give him the hawk. He’ll know what to do.” He took a deep breath and said, “You’ll be all right.” It wasn’t addressed to Brendon, that last part, but the hawk in Spencer’s arms. He took off his black wool cloak and wrapped the hawk in it, stroking its head soothingly.

“All right,” said Brendon. After all that had happened, he didn’t see how he could deny any request of Spencer’s, no matter how strange. He mounted Goliath with some difficulty, and the huge horse jerked his head around as if to say, “Who the hell is _this_ on my back?” but he didn’t bite, and after a moment his restless stamping calmed.

Spencer gingerly handed the hawk to Brendon. “Be _careful_!” he hissed as Brendon took the bird. “Listen,” he said again. “If you fail—if you run off, if that hawk dies—I’ll give up trying to kill the Bishop and spend the rest of my life trying to kill _you_.”

Brendon nodded solemnly. At this point, he felt he was probably getting off lucky with just a threat. Spencer slapped Goliath’s rump, setting the horse off towards the left. With some difficulty, Brendon untangled the reins and guided Goliath towards the overgrown path Spencer had indicated, watching over his shoulder as the former captain grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

Once Goliath got going, he _really_ got going, and it was all Brendon could do to hold onto the hawk and stay on Goliath’s back at the same time. He felt every jolt and bump on the road in his sore muscles, but stopping for a rest wasn’t even an option, not with the hawk bleeding out in his arms and Spencer’s threat still echoing in his hears. “Dear God,” he said, gritting his teeth, “please, please, once I get to this castle, let me rest for a while. I know I’ve asked a lot of you, but really, in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think a full night of sleep in a comfortable bed is such an unreasonable request.” The hawk made a weak noise that sounded almost like agreement.

Brendon lost track of time, galloping over apparently endless rolling hills and grassy plains to the mountains in the west. The sun was setting behind them when he saw it: silhouetted against the blood-red sky, a misshappen structure on one of the mountains’ foothills, its crumbling towers leaning pathetically forward.

Brendon couldn’t imagine that anyone actually lived there. The place looked like a wreck. Still, Spencer had said he’d find help there, and if nothing else, it would be a place out of the cold wind to spend the night. Hesitantly, he urged Goliath forward. He wasn’t at all sure about his ability to steer a horse up the rocky trail to the ruin, but Goliath seemed to know what he was doing, so Brendon concentrated on keeping himself and the hawk on Goliath’s back while he picked his way around boulders and sharp turns up the hill.

When they got within earshot of the place, Brendon yelled, “Hello?” The solid stone of the castle swallowed his voice, and he heard no signs of life within. _Let there be someone here, please_ , he thought, and tried again. “Hello? For pity’s sake, if someone’s there, please answer me!”

“Hello!” A short man appeared on one of the walls over the gate, peering down at him curiously. “What are you shouting about down there? You need something?”

Brendon frowned. Was this the priest Spencer had mentioned? He looked much younger than most of the priests Brendon had ever known, with an unruly thatch of brown hair and a shaggy beard, and (if Brendon didn’t miss his guess) he sounded a little drunk. “Are you Father Jon Walker?” he asked.

“Who wants to know?” asked the man.

Brendon took that to mean that he was—he certainly didn’t have time to stand here and argue about it all night. “Please!” he called again. “I have this bird, and it’s wounded!”

“All right,” said Father Walker, baffled. “Did you want me to help you clean and cook it or something?”

Brendon made an involuntary noise of frustration, feeling as if every second he wasted here would end up being another reason for Spencer to kill him. “No!” he shouted. “This isn’t an ordinary hawk! It belongs to Captain Spencer Smith, and he told me to take it to you for healing!”

There was a silence then, and Brendon squinted in the fading light at the wall, hoping the priest hadn’t left.

He hadn’t. He muttered, “Mother of God!” and started fiddling with something that made a loud cranking noise, and the gate started to slowly creak open. “Bring him in, bring him in!” he shouted, and Brendon nudged Goliath towards the gate.

When they reached the overgrown courtyard, Father Walker was already there. “You can let Goliath relax in the courtyard,” he said tensely. “But first hand me the hawk.” Brendon obeyed, strangely reassured by the fact that Walker knew the horse’s name, and dismounted. Goliath, to his surprise, gently lipped his shoulder before ambling off through the grass to a small pond in the corner of the courtyard.

Brendon followed Father Walker up the curve of the hill to a garden across from the main hold of the castle. What a strange place for a priest to live, he thought. Maybe he had become a monk—or a hermit, really, because no monastic order in their right minds would set up a monastery _here_.

A drawbridge on the upper level led to the hold. Walker led the way again, saying to Brendon over his shoulder, “Careful here. Walk on the left side.” Brendon looked dubiously at the drawbridge. Parts of it seemed almost rotted through and the whole thing was drooping in a fairly alarming way. Walker seemed to pick up on Brendon’s nervousness and said, “Don’t be afraid. I know it looks bad, but if you keep to the left side, you have nothing to worry about.” With that, he began to stride across himself. It couldn’t possibly be that dangerous if he was walking on it, Brendon decided, and he hurried to follow the priest across to the hold.

The inside of the hold was, if possible, even more dilapidated than it appeared from the outside. Gaps in the roof let in the last fading bits of sunlight and the cold air. A rat scurried across a corridor as Brendon and Walker strode down it. The whole place was dank and smelled of rotting things, and Brendon couldn’t imagine why anyone, even a hermit, would choose to live there.

The room into which Walker led Brendon, however, was considerably better. A warm fire burned at the far side of the room. A shelf by the door was filled with more books than Brendon had ever seen, even in the copying room at the monastery, and a candle-lit desk beside the shelf held another book in the process of being copied from a pile of shabby scraps of parchment. One corner held a small but clean-looking bed, and Brendon guessed that here was where Walker did most of his living.

“All right,” said Walker, indicating the bed. “Lay the hawk here. Gently!”

The hawk made a weak noise as Brendon lay it down. It was surely done for, Brendon thought sadly. This Father Walker would have to be some kind of miracle worker to save it now—it couldn’t possibly have much blood left, at the rate its small body had been bleeding all evening.

“All right,” said Walker. “Go clean yourself up. I’ve got work to do.”

“Can I help?” Brendon asked.

Walker seemed to consider it seriously for a moment, but finally he shook his head. “Thank you, but the room isn’t big enough for two of us to work, and I don’t have time to teach you what to do. Go have a wash in the pond. You’re all bloody.”

As Brendon left, he could hear Walker murmuring to the bird. “Don’t be frightened. You’ll be all right. Just a little longer now….”

Brendon didn’t see the priest again for hours. He passed the time lying in the soft, tall grass by the pond, listening to Goliath graze, gazing at the stars burning clearly in the midnight-blue sky, and letting the tension seep out of his weary muscles. The moon was high when Walker finally emerged.

Bored and eager for a chance to find out how things were going with the hawk, Brendon held himself perfectly still and pretended to be asleep while Walker, muttering what sounded like a list of herbs under his breath, rumbled around the garden to the far side of the hold. When he was out of sight of the bridge, Brendon scrambled up and across it and back to the little room inside.

He stopped on the threshold, unable to really believe what he was seeing. The hawk was gone. In its place was was the handsome young man from the night of the wolf attack, sprawled across the bed with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. His dark hair was matted with sweat to his forehead and he was breathing shallowly, but he lifted his head as Brendon entered.

“Who the hell are you?” he breathed, barely audible. “Where’s Spencer?”

“Spencer….” What could he say? Spencer was wounded somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, without his horse and with a wolf howling in the distance? “Spencer’s fine, sir,” he finally said. “I mean, he will be. We had a fight with the Bishop’s Guard, and he got shot, but I don’t think it’s bad. The hawk was wounded, so he sent me away to get help.” He frowned at the man, feeling strangely reckless. In a night when the impossible was lying right before his eyes, were manners really so important? “I guess I don’t have to tell you about the hawk’s being wounded, though, right?”

“What do you think?” asked the young man, lying his head back down with a sigh.

“I don’t know what to think. Are you a man, or…some sort of a spirit?” The proper word should have been “devil,” or “demon,” but neither of those seemed right to apply to the thin, oddly graceful-looking man before him.

“Neither, really,” said the man, his voice devoid of emotion. “I’m cursed. Or perhaps I’m a curse. One or the other.” He frowned at something, or someone, over Brendon’s shoulder. “Well. Didn’t expect to see you again. Alive, anyway.”

Brendon turned around to see Father Walker behind him, holding a basket full of herbs. He stared between Brendon and the young man in the bed, and then he said, “Maybe I was unclear before. When I told you to go clean yourself up, what I meant was that I have a lot of work to do tonight and I don’t want to have to worry about you the whole time.”

“No, I got it,” Brendon said, standing up. _Cursed_. “I just wanted to see--”

“Well, you’ve seen now,” said Walker, steering him towards the door. “Please. Go now, and stay out.” He shut the door with Brendon on the other side and locked the door behind him. Brendon could have picked the lock if he’d wanted to. But now…now he just wanted to think.

He settled himself in the herb garden and reveled in the fresh, clean smell that pervaded it. _How?_ he thought. _Why?_ What kind of curse turned a man into a hawk—when the sun rose? Spencer knew—of course he knew. Why? Why did they travel together, Spencer and the mysterious hawk-man, and who was he?

A horrible scream from Walker’s room rent the air, and Brendon shuddered. Surely the man would live. Surely someone who had been exempt from the normal laws of nature like this mysterious stranger had would also be exempt from death. In the distance, a wolf howled, as if in sympathy with the screaming man, and Brendon thought of Spencer, of the way he disappeared in the night, and his strange closeness to the hawk….

He hadn’t even realized he was sleepy, but Walker was kneeling by his side, putting his warm hand on Brendon’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said quietly, “but it’s cold out, so I thought you might like to come inside. My bed’s taken, but at least it’s warm in my room.”

“The wolf,” Brendon blurted out. “It’s Spencer. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but somehow, Spencer turns into a wolf at night and the hawk turns into a man—or, you know, the other way around.”

Walker gave him a considering look, his dark eyes solemn. Then he said, “Do you want something to eat? You must be hungry, what with all the riding and fighting you’ve seen today.”

He hadn’t thought about it actually, but he _was_ hungry. He hadn’t eaten since the day he and Spencer left the Ways’ cottage, and a lot had happened since then. His stomach growled and Walker grinned at him, the kind of amused expression he had never seen from a priest before. “Come on,” he said, pulling Brendon to his feet. “What’s mine is yours.”

There was a little alcove against the wall on one side of the garden with a fire pit, out of the way of the wind. They ate bread and salted rabbit and apples, and Walker poured Brendon a glass of wine. “By the way,” he said as he poured, “I don’t really know your part in all this. What’s your name?”

“Brendon. Brendon Urie,” said Brendon in between mouthfuls of bread. It wasn’t anything special, a little tough and stale, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Thanks for the food, Father,” he said. It was probably rude to talk with your mouth full, wasn’t it? Oh, well.

“Not a problem, Brendon,” Walker said with some amusement. Then, with a somewhat uncomfortable shrug, he added, “You can just call me Jon, if you want.”

“All right,” said Brendon when he’d finished swallowing. Jon seemed to be a pretty odd priest. Not in a bad way, though, and really, what about this situation wasn’t odd?

“How’d you come to be travelling with Spencer Smith?” Jon’s tone was casual, but there was a thread of deeper interest in his voice, and Brendon found his own curiosity aroused.

“He saved me from the Bishop’s Guard. Twice.” He saw no particular reason to tell Jon just why he had needed to be saved in the first place; it wasn’t something even the strangest priest was likely to understand. Besides, Brendon had questions of his own that needed answering. “Who’s the man in your room?” he asked. “The hawk, I mean.”

“I was afraid we would get to that eventually,” Jon muttered. He downed his wine in one long gulp and poured himself another, and Brendon thought that if he always drank this much, his original impression of the man as drunk was probably an accurate one. “His name is Ryan Ross,” he said, and he took another sip of wine. “His father was the Count of Ross. I guess you would call him an intemperate man—prone to violence, fond of his drink.” Brendon wasn’t sure that Jon had any room to talk there, but he kept his silence, hoping for more of the story. “He died in the Holy Land, slaughtering Saracens. Ryan came back from Antioch and inherited his family lands, but he didn’t want to stay there with his father dead, and so he went to Aquila to stay with a cousin, Zack.” Jon sighed deeply, rubbing his fingers along the stem of his glasss. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw him. Nobody in Aquila had ever seen anything like him.

“We all loved him, I think. He’d traveled to the Holy Land and the East, he’d visited the King’s Court. He dressed and spoke and acted like…like nothing we had ever seen. Bill—His Grace the Bishop, that is—loved him, too.”

“What do you mean, loved?” asked Brendon. He had never heard of anything or anyone the hated Bishop of Aquila loved, and the way that Jon had said the word made Brendon think that he wasn’t talking about brotherly love. That maybe he was talking about something else, something Brendon had always (in roundabout, unspecific warnings) been told was forbidden.

Jon leveled a steady look at him. “I mean, the bishop had a passion for Ryan. A passion that was eating him from the inside out. He was like a man possessed.

“Ryan wanted none of him, though. He ignored his advances. But it wasn’t that Ryan didn’t share Beckett’s…ah, predilections. The so-called “Greek Vice,” if you will. By some twist of fate, he’d lost his own heart to the Captain of the Guard.” At this point Jon gave Brendon a questioning look, as if to test his response to this tale.

Brendon, who hadn’t ever really understood the laws that governed sexual morality and didn’t really care about them, was more interested _who_ the object of Ryan’s illicit affections was. “Spencer Smith!” he exclaimed. So the hawk-man Spencer cared for so much was, in fact, his lover. It wasn’t what Brendon would have guessed, had he been asked a day ago, but it made sense, now, and he watched with rapt attention as Jon continued, apparently satisfied by this response.

“Yes,” he said with a sad smile. “Spencer was the captain of the Guard, then, and from the moment Ryan had arrived in Aquila, the two of them had been as close as two men could be. They rode together, they dined together, they went on trips together, and somewhere along the way, they just….” He shrugged, his expression helpless but not disgusted or tragic. Brendon wished the monks who had raised him had been more like Jon. He might never have left the monastery and gotten into this whole mess.

“The Bishop knew they were friends, of course, everyone did, but he didn’t know about the rest of it, and they weren’t about to tell him. They lived quite happily, I think, until….” Jon’s voice grew low, and he gulped down the rest of his second wine.

“Until what?” Brendon knew the story could only go downhill from here, but he wanted—he _needed_ to know what had happened.

“They had the same priest, Spencer and Ryan,” said Jon. There was a curious tightness to his tone, and his hands shook slightly. He put down his empty glass and put his hands in his lap. “Not just a confessor, but a friend. At least,” he muttered, “they thought he was a friend. But he’d also grown up with the Bishop. He’d cleaned out the stables at the same church where the Bishop had been a young priest, and he owed a lot to him. And he also liked his drink a bit much. One day, in conversation with the Bishop, he happened to reveal the true nature of Spencer and Ryan’s relationship. He didn’t….” He looked at Brendon, his eyes almost pleading. “He didn’t realize. He didn’t see how power-hungry and jealous the Bishop was getting, he just saw his friend.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Jon was talking about himself. Which explained, perhaps, why he was living in this ruin in the middle of nowhere—if Brendon had betrayed Spencer Smith like that, he’d be hiding out, too. Of course, he thought uncomfortably, he sort of had, by giving Spencer’s location away to Travis and Maja, getting Ryan and Spencer wounded. Maybe he should ask if Jon needed any help around the castle.

Jon gazed into the fire for a long moment before resuming his tale. “His Grace the Bishop seemed to go mad. He—he lost any sense of reason or decency he’d ever had. He started making long proclamations declaring Spencer and Ryan abominations and offering rewards to bring them in to face the Church’s justice. I—they got out of the city, with some help from their stupid priest and a few soldiers who stayed loyal to Spencer. Beckett excommunicated them.” Again he fell silent, and Brendon thought that if this was any ordinary tale, it would end here. A normal bishop couldn’t do anything more than that. Clearly, though, something further, something darker, had happened next.

“The Bishop couldn’t find them,” said Jon. “He followed, but Spencer knew the land too well, and Ryan was good at finding people who would harbor them. So the Bishop, he sold--” Jon’s voice broke, and Brendon thought that if he hadn’t believed Jon’s story of being friends with the Bishop as a boy, he’d believe it now. “He sold his soul to the Devil for the power to curse them. And the Evil One delivered. Every day, Ryan changes into a hawk, and every night—well,” he said with a gesture over the walls, to the wide stretch of land where the wolf could still be heard howling every so often. “You hear Spencer. He turns into a wolf. And every sunrise or sunset, just in those few moments when it’s neither day nor night, they can watch each other change but they can’t—it’s never long enough for them to touch.”

“So they’re always together and never together all at the same time,” said Brendon, horrified. He’d never had someone about whom he cared so much that he’d risk his life to be with them, but even he could guess what a horrible fate this agonizing, fruitless closeness would be.

Jon nodded. “As long as there’s a day and a night, and as long as they both live.” He seemed to pull his straying thoughts out of the past and brushed off the knees of his habit. “Aren’t you glad you stumbled into this mess?” he asked with forced-sounding levity.

Brendon took a deep breath and exhaled again, trying to clear the haze of disbelief from his mind. “There’s nothing that can be done? To break the curse?”

Jon shrugged. “Well, that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the past two years. You’d be amazed how many books there are about curses, if you just know where to look for them.” He picked up the flagon of wine, peered at it with a vaguely disgusted expression, and said, “Want another drink?”

Brendon nodded, holding out his glass. Jon poured with unsteady hands and frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. “What’s that?” he asked.

“What’s what?” asked Brendon, taking a long swig of his wine and setting his glass down.

“Your wrists.” Jon grabbed one of Brendon’s hands and held it close to his face, examining it in the flickering firelight. “What happened?”

Brendon had forgotten about the rope burns and splinters from his time riding with the Guard, but the memory of those—and, indeed, all the other pains he had received over the last week—returned in a flash and his whole body, which had begun to relax, tensed and ached. “I told you,” he said. “Spencer rescued me from the Guard. They’re not that concerned with their prisoners’ comfort.”

“I guess not,” said Jon. He carefully turned Brendon’s wrist around to see it from all angles and said, “Anything else I should look at?”

Brendon was caught off-guard. “What?” He’d never had a healer look at his wounds before, and none of them, not the bruises or the splinters or the still-stinging scrapes from his adventures in the sewers, were serious enough to threaten his life or hinder his movement, so it had never occurred to him that someone might actually consider it worth his time to try to fix them.

“I’d be a pretty terrible healer if I saw such a clear risk for infection and didn’t do anything about it,” Jon said with a small smile. “I’ve been preoccupied with Ryan tonight, but he’s stable now, and resting, so if you have any complaints….”

Brendon never needed more than one invitation to start speaking. He listed his various injuries, and Jon peered at them, occasionally probing one with his warm, work-roughened fingers. He winced in sympathy at the scrapes from the sewers, which had begun to ooze bloody pus, and when he had finished his examination, he said, “Wait here. I have some ointments for the infections, and something for the pain.”

He dashed quickly back to his small room, and returned a minute or so later with a cool, moist substance that felt good on his bruises and scrapes, a sticky one that stung in open wounds, and some clean bandages. His hands were quick and gentle, despite the calluses, and Brendon felt a warmth in the pit of his stomach at the tenderness. It was probably the most consideration anyone had ever had for him, and he reveled in it.

When Jon was finished, he looked blearily at the sky and said, “Only a few more hours until dawn. We might as well get some sleep while we can.” Together, they stumbled back to Jon’s small room and curled up in front of the fire. Jon fell asleep almost immediately, his habit twisted around him and his face resting on his forearm, but Brendon, despite his bone-deep exhaustion, found himself distracted by thoughts.

 _Is it wrong to be glad about Ryan getting hurt, God?_ Brendon wondered, staring at the steady rise and fall of Jon’s chest. _I feel like maybe it’s done me some spiritual good, meeting a priest who actually tries to do Your work instead of turning people into animals and stuff. And also, isn’t it good that I learned the truth about Spencer and Ryan? The truth’s always a good thing, right? Only please don’t let Ryan die, because then it would all be for nothing, and I know Spencer can take care of himself, but let him be okay, too. And let the curse be broken. If you let Ryan and Spencer be human again and happy together, I won’t just give up stealing, I’ll…._

But he didn’t get the chance to think of what he would do, because at that point he fell asleep.

***

The three of them spent another two days and nights together in Jon’s crumbling ruin. In the morning, Jon made him some porridge while the hawk perched on Jon’s bed and screeched plaintively.

Brendon didn’t even bother worrying about Spencer. He’d heard the wolf howling the previous night, and from what little time he’d known Spencer, the man seemed well able to take care of himself. So Brendon threw himself into helping Jon gather herbs for his medicines, caring for the goats and chickens and mule that Jon kept, and enjoying the feeling of safety. Nobody, he reasoned, would think to look for him here.

He decided, after Jon’s honesty with him the previous night, that he owed him some honesty of his own. So while Jon showed him how to make a poultice of wolfsbane, Brendon blurted out, “I’m a pickpocket.”

Jon stared at him for a long moment, and then said, “Um. All right.”

“No, just,” Brendon said, “I felt bad with you being a priest and fixing me up, and me coming and eating all your food and making you tell me all that stuff about the curse, so I thought I ought to let you know. Just in case,” and here he felt a lurch in his stomach, a sort of internal flinching away from pain, “you know, you don’t want a thief hanging around.”

Jon shrugged, still looking a little taken aback. “Well, I’m certainly not going to throw you outside and lock the gates on you,” he said. “I figured it was probably something like that when you told me about Spencer rescuing you from the guards. I’m just glad you’re not a murderer or something.”

“I’m not really even a pickpocket anymore,” said Brendon, inordinately relieved. “I mean, I gave it up when I escaped from Aquila. I’m turning over a new leaf.”

“Good for you,” said Jon seriously. Then he changed the subject to the poultice they were preparing, and they worked for a while. When it was done and they were ready to bring it up to Ryan’s room, Jon startled Brendon by turning to him and saying, “You know, if you wanted to, you could probably become a healer. You’re picking it up pretty fast.” Brendon was so pleased by this that he threw his arms around Jon in a spontaneous embrace. He let go quickly, remembering that Jon had been alone for a long time and might be kind of alarmed by people throwing themselves on him, but Jon just smiled and reddened slightly and patted Brendon awkwardly on the shoulder.

That night, Brendon was determined to make his aquaintance with Ryan. “Come on,” he said, trying to pursuade Jon to join him. “I bet he doesn’t get to talk to other people very often, only being around at night. And it’s been, what, two years? No way he’ll hold a grudge that long, especially since you just saved his life.”

Jon froze, and the expression on his face was a strange mix of hope and dejection. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I don’t want to…force anything. He’s still recovering, and….”

He ended up following Brendon to Ryan’s room with some vaguely fresh bread and cheese. (“He’s got to be starving!” said Brendon, but Jon pointed out that he was recovering from an arrow to the shoulder and hadn’t eaten in two days, and they didn’t want to make him sick.)

Ryan was human again, his naked body covered by the rough wool blankets on Jon’s bed. “You again,” he said when they entered.

Brendon wasn’t sure whether he was talking to him or to Jon, but it didn’t really matter. “How are you feeling?” he asked, as cheerfully as he could manage.

“Fine,” said Ryan coolly. “You’re very good at what you do, Father Walker.” Though this last was obstensibly a compliment for Jon, Ryan said it without even looking at him, and his cold tone of voice made it seem more like an insult.

Jon took it pretty well, Brendon thought, shrugging and asking, “How’s the pain? We prepared a wolfsbane poultice, so if your shoulder’s hurting….”

“It’s not,” Ryan interrupted. “Thank you. I’d like to rest now.”

Jon nodded and turned to leave. He raised his eyebrows at Brendon and gestured towards the door, but Brendon shook his head. It was going to take a lot more than Ryan’s haughty attitude to scare him off.

“You don’t mind if I stay for a while, do you, sir?” he asked, taking a seat by the bed. “It’s cold outside.”

“I suppose not.” Ryan turned onto his good side, looking at Brendon curiously. “Who are you? You were with Spencer in the forest, and now you’re here.”

“My name’s Brendon Urie. Spencer—Captain Smith, I mean--saved me from the Bishop’s Guard, so I’ve been hanging around, trying to help him.”

“Well, you can’t be doing a very good job, can you?” asked Ryan. “If, as you said, Spencer’s out there wounded somewhere.”

Brendon flushed and felt a wave of guilt, but it quickly passed. “It was more important to him that you get help. When you were hurt…he just looked crushed. Like he didn’t want to go on living if he couldn’t do it with you.”

Ryan’s face softened at this, and his voice had lost some of its hostility when he said, “May I have some of that bread? I’m starving.”

They talked for a while about vague nothings—the putrid smell of some of Jon’s herbal compounds, the unseasonably cold weather, their various medical complaints. (Brendon mathematically proved that, added all together, his scrapes and bruises were a lot worse than Ryan’s arrow to the shoulder. Ryan seemed skeptical.) When Brendon walked out after an hour or two, he could completely understand why Spencer and Jon and the Bishop and the whole city of Aquila had fallen in love with him. He wasn’t exactly kind, but he seemed to understand a great deal. He made you want him to think well of you, Brendon thought.

The next day, Jon excused himself part of the way through breakfast, and Brendon said, “Oh, do you do lauds? I mean, I wouldn’t do it if I was a priest in the middle of nowhere all by myself, but then again I don’t have anywhere near the amount of willpower to be a priest, so I guess my opinion isn’t worth much here.”

Jon gave him a startled look. “I was just going to go check on Ryan,” he said. “I haven’t been keeping canonical hours for a while. Do you?”

Brendon shook his head. “No. I used to, back when I lived in the monastery.”

Another startled look from Jon. “When was this?”

And, granted, Brendon didn’t usually like to talk about his childhood. It made him think of stern reprimands and cold stone floors and harsh beatings, all the times he was too loud and curious and spontaneous for the restrictive routine of the monastery. But this seemed like the perfect time to bring up the past, isolated from the real world as they were, and so he said, “When I was little. My parents left me there—I think they already had too many children, or I was too much trouble or something. But anyway, I lived there—ten or twelve years, maybe? I left when I was fifteen. I decided the monastic life just wasn’t for me. Too quiet, and too many monks.” He remembered who he was talking to and added, “No offense.”

Jon laughed. “None taken.” He sat back down, picking at the crust of his bread. “That’s actually sort of how I became a priest. I mean, not leaving when I was fifteen, but—my mother died when I was ten, and the innkeeper at the inn where she worked didn’t have time to care for a child. She was a barmaid,” he said as if in explanation, though Brendon hadn’t said anything. “So anyway, I went to live at the monastery, cleaning out the stables and caring for the animals. And Bill--” He broke off abruptly, and his expression darkened. “I mean, I became friends with the hospitaler’s assistant, and he convinced me that the church would be a good place for me.”

Imagine that, Brendon thought. The Bishop hadn’t always been a terror, then. And Jon wasn’t that old, so it couldn’t have been so long ago that Beckett was nothing more than a hospitaler’s assistant in some out-of-the-way monastery. Brendon wondered what had happened.

There was a certain anxiety in Jon’s manner that day; he checked on Ryan more frequently, and every so often he would climb up the front parapet to gaze out over the plains. Probably looking for Spencer, Brendon thought. He felt a little nervous himself, though he wasn’t sure if it was because he feared that Spencer wouldn’t come or if he feared that he would.

When night fell, they both went to check on Ryan again. His shoulder was much improved, and he seemed impatient to be up and about.

“Well,” said Jon after changing the bandages, “if you want to come and sit in the herb garden with Brendon while I gather some aloe, I think you’re well enough to be out of bed.”

Brendon, eager to have someone to complain about the run-down castle with and excited about showing Ryan his new herb identification skills, said, “Oh, that sounds good, let’s do that.”

Ryan, however, shook his head. He’d stiffened the moment Jon had touched him to unwrap his soiled bandages, and his face was still frozen into a cold mask as he said, “That’s quite all right, thank you. I think I’d prefer to rest,” in a tone utterly devoid of emotion.

Jon nodded slowly and said, “All right. I’ll be outside if I’m needed.” Brendon tried to meet his eyes to see how he was taking this latest iciness from Ryan, but the priest seemed unwilling to look at him and took his leave without more than a half-hearted gesture of farewell.

Brendon frowned and settled down on his usual stool by Ryan. “You’re being a fool,” he informed Ryan. “I know you wanted to go outside, so why didn’t you?”

“What makes you think you know anything about what I want to do?” asked Ryan. His voice was still cool, but at least he was looking at Brendon with an irritated expression instead of his earlier contemptuous regality.

“Because!” Brendon exclaimed. He supposed he should have been more respectful, talking to the Count of Ross, but he didn’t feel like Ryan was really in a position to command deference from anyone, much less Brendon, who had saved his life. “You’re so twitchy and you don’t look like your shoulder hurts at all and you’ve been stuck inside in bed for two days. I know you’re angry at Jon, but staying inside just to spite him when you really want to get out of bed is just _stupid_.”

“You have no idea,” Ryan began haughtily, but Brendon cut him off.

“Of course I do! Jon told me the whole story the first night I came here. And of course he was wrong to tell the Bishop about you and Spencer, but it’s not as if he was trying to hurt you. He feels so bad about it that he’s living out here in the middle of nowhere reading all these long boring books on magic and stuff so he can break the curse, and he did just save your _life_ , so I think the least you can do is not make him feel like a horrible person every time he talks to you.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows. “You might be less forgiving if it were _you_ who turned into a hawk every night,” he said. But when Jon came in a short while later to retrieve the ingredient list for one of his potions, Ryan said, in a tone that sounded genuinely polite, “I feel very well-rested now, so if it isn’t too much trouble, perhaps I could join you in the herb garden after all.”

Jon didn’t even try to disguise his happiness, and it made Brendon smile involuntarily to see it. The three of them spent the rest of the night lounging about the herb garden—or at least, Ryan did, while Brendon sat next to him one moment and picked herbs with Jon the next. Ryan was still a little cold, uncomfortable, but at least he was talking to Jon, and Brendon felt as proud about that as he had about anything he’d ever done.

He didn’t even remember falling asleep, but when he woke up he was curled by the fire in Ryan’s room, and Jon was seated at his desk writing something. “What time is it?” he asked blearily.

“A little after sunrise,” said Jon, gesturing towards where Ryan was perched in his hawk form at the foot of the bed. “Do you want something to eat?”

Ordinarily, the answer to this question would always have been ‘yes,’ but having eaten regular meals for the past few days had finally given Brendon’s curiosity the edge over his hunger. “Maybe later,” he said, standing up and leaning over Jon so his chin rested on Jon’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Jon was quiet for a long moment and then said, “I think…I don’t know, but I think I’ve found a way to break the curse.”

“That’s splendid!” said Brendon. He wasn’t even surprised. Anyone as dedicated and clever as Jon had to find an answer sooner or later, and why not now, when he had Brendon to help him? “How?” he asked.

“Well,” said Jon slowly, “do you remember what I said about the curse? That it’ll last as long as there’s a day and a night?”

“Of course,” said Brendon.

“How would you define those? Day and night, I mean?”

Brendon frowned. It seemed like an odd question, but undoubtedly it was relevant…somehow. After a moment of thought, he said, “Well, day’s when the sun’s up, and night’s when it’s not.”

“If the sun were up, but you just couldn’t see it, so it was dark out, would that count as day, or night?” asked Jon, his voice strangely insistent.

Brendon shrugged. These were the kind of philosophical matters that had bored him to tears during his lessons at the monastery. “I don’t know,” he said. “Both, I guess. Or maybe neither. Why?”

Jon moved some things around on his desk and said, “All right. Let’s say this inkwell is the moon, and this candlestick is the sun. Oh, and this lump of bread is us.” He positioned the items so that the candlestick was directly in front of the lump of bread. “Usually, we’re like this, with nothing between us and the sun, and so that’s daylight when the sun comes around our side. But!” He moved the inkwell between the bread and the candlestick. “There are times when the moon comes between us and the sun, so that, even when it’s daytime, it’s dark out.”

This all sounded very strange to Brendon, like something that would happen in a Bible story because some hero couldn’t stand sunlight or something. “I’ve never heard of the moon ever doing that,” he said, cautiously, because he didn’t want to make it sound like he was calling Jon a liar.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” said Jon with a small smile. “The last time it happened here was more than three hundred years ago. And it only lasts for a few minutes when it does. But that means that when it does happen again, in three days, there’ll be a few minutes when both Ryan and Spencer are human and they can confront the Bishop. I think, anyway.”

Brendon paused for a minute to digest all this. He didn’t know anything about magic, but the whole day-and-night-at-the-same-time thing (if it was actually true) sounded like a good start. But… “Spencer wants to kill the Bishop. Is that gonna be a problem?”

Jon blanched. “Is that going to be a _problem?_ ” he asked in a pinched, breathless voice. “Well, yeah, on a number of different levels. But primarily, for you, I guess, is the fact that if he kills the Bishop before the curse is broken, it’ll _never_ be broken.”

“Oh.” That was a problem. Brendon and Jon stared at each other for a moment before being interrupted by the sound of someone shouting down below, from outside the walls.

“Walker!” the voice yelled. “I know you’re in there! And if Ryan isn’t there and all right, you and Urie are both going to die long, painful deaths.”

“Spencer’s back!” Brendon exclaimed. He wasn’t sure why he was so excited about it, given the undoubtedly sincere death threats. But still, he couldn’t help himself from rushing outside to scramble up the wall and shout down, “Captain Smith! You’re all right! Hold on just a second and we’ll get the gate open!”

Spencer peered up at him and, to Brendon’s surprise and pleasure, smiled. “I see you made it here all right, then.”

“You bet,” said Brendon, winding the crank that opened the gate. “And don’t worry, Goliath and Ryan are both doing fine. Goliath’s been enjoying himself grazing in the courtyard, and Ryan and I have been helping Jon gather herbs.”

Spencer blinked. “You…you know about Ryan, then?”

“And the curse and everything? Yeah, Jon told me.” With a final rusty creak, the gate fell open, and Spencer trudged inside. Brendon could see Jon walking slowly to meet him from the garden, and he climbed down from the wall to join them.

Spencer was staring at Jon, eyes narrowed and lips pressed together. He didn’t look at all pleased. Jon was attempting a smile, but it was coming out more dejected and scared than happy. “Brendon told me you were wounded?” he said hesitantly. “I could—if you want, I could take a look at it.”

“What the hell do you care?” Spencer asked. “I’m amazed you’re still here. I thought perhaps you’d gone back to drink and hang around drunks in that cesspool you came from. Or didn’t they want you there, either?”

Brendon knew that Spencer had legitimate reasons to be angry at Jon, but that knowledge didn’t stop his stomach from clenching unpleasantly at the pain in Jon’s face or Spencer’s obvious satisfaction at seeing it. He broke in, saying, “I’m gonna go let Ryan out of your room, Jon. I bet he’ll be really happy to see Spencer again.”

“No need,” Jon said, pointing. Brendon turned to see Ryan wheeling about the sky, making his way over to Spencer in graceful swoops and swerves before finally landing on Spencer’s extended forearm.

Spencer’s face softened immediately, and he kissed the top of Ryan’s feathered head. “Hey, there you are,” he said softly. “I missed you.” He sighed deeply and said, looking up, “I—thank you, Jon. I don’t have to tell you how much this means to me.”

 _Enough to forgive him?_ Brendon wondered. Jon, however, just nodded, saying, “I’m just happy I could help. Is your shoulder all right?”

Spencer nodded. Brendon peered at him curiously; he must have had another tunic somewhere, because the one he was wearing showed no signs of having been shot through or bled on. “It’s fine,” said Spencer. “I’ll just get my horse and go. Urie—Brendon,” he said with a curiously apologetic look, “If you ever owed me anything, it’s more than paid back now. I don’t know what I was thinking, making you come to Aquila with us. It’s not like I’d really be able to crawl through sewers anyway. I guess, if you wanted to go somewhere else…you could go there, now. I wouldn’t stop you.”

Brendon had never heard a more hesitant, humble dismissal in his entire life—and he’d heard a lot of them. _So he likes me after all!_ he thought, a bit triumphant. Well, that settled it. Of course he’d keep on traveling with Spencer and Ryan. The only other place he’d really want to be was at the ruined castle with Jon, but he wasn’t sure whether Jon would welcome the interruption to his isolation and study. Which reminded Brendon….“Are you and Ryan still going to Aquila?”

“That’s the plan,” said Spencer. Goliath, apparently hearing a familiar voice, ambled over and nosed the top of Spencer’s head. Spencer laughed and scratched between his ears.

“Um.” Jon spoke up hesitantly. “By any chance, you wouldn’t be going there to try and kill Beckett, would you?”

Some of the softness leaked out of Spencer’s face, and his voice was cold as he said, “Yes. I am.”

His tone didn’t invite argument, and Brendon winced at it, but Jon continued with a determined expression. “I think…I think that might not be such a good idea.”

“Oh, really?” asked Spencer, one eyebrow raised derisively. “And why not?”

“I’ve been studying. Curses and things. And I think I’ve come up with a way to break the curse, only the Bishop has to be alive for it to work. I mean, you should still go to Aquila….”

Spencer narrowed his eyes. “Well, I’m glad you approve of at least that much.”

Jon took a deep breath and scratched awkwardly at his beard. “In three days, there’ll be a day without a night and a night without a day—I mean, as far as the curse is concerned, I think that’s how it’ll work. You and Ryan should be both human at the same time, and if you confront Beckett then, I think his power will be broken and the curse will end.”

“Right,” said Spencer with a smirk. “I see you haven’t given up your liquor then, have you?”

“I’m serious, Captain Smith.” He seemed to have lost most of his awkwardness, and he met Spencer’s eyes squarely as he said, “This is it. This is the only way to break the curse that I’ve found in two years of looking. Please, just listen to me, and whatever you do, _don’t_ kill the Bishop yet.”

“I don’t have any reason whatsoever to believe anything you say,” Spencer said with a ring of finality to his voice. “Urie, is Goliath’s saddle around here somewhere?”

“Um, yeah.” Brendon had taken it off and thrown it against a wall in the courtyard the first night he and Goliath had arrived at the castle, and he quickly dashed over to retrieve it. Spencer saddled Goliath with quick, angry movements, apparently determined to ignore anything else that might be happening around him, and Jon stood still, looking utterly defeated. Brendon drew close to him, worried.

“We’re not giving up, are we?” he said in as close as a whisper as he could manage. “We have three days, right? There’s no way we’re going to get to Aquila before that, not with covering our tracks and hiding from the Guard and stuff, so that’s enough time to convince him you’re telling the truth, isn’t it?”

“Well, you’ll have to do it,” said Jon in a low voice, twisting his mouth into an unhappy smile. “He’s certainly not going to let me tag along.”

“But….” Brendon didn’t want to leave Jon here. He didn’t want the two years Jon had spent in this dank, crumbling castle to have been for nothing. Ryan had forgiven him, and Ryan had just as much reason to be angry as Spencer did, so why couldn’t Spencer at least give Jon a chance?

“You can’t make someone forgive you, Brendon,” Jon said sadly. Apparently, his study of magic had given him the ability to read people’s minds. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“But he’s not going to listen to me!” said Brendon. “I mean, he might listen to Ryan, but it’s not like Ryan can convince him either, what with being a hawk during the day and all, and--” Something suddenly occurred to Brendon. “That’s it!”

Jon looked at Brendon a little nervously. “What’s it?”

“Here’s what we do.” Brendon couldn’t even believe his own brilliance sometimes. It was really remarkable. “I’ll go with Spencer now. He’ll totally let me go with him; did you see how sad he was when he told me I could go wherever I wanted? I’ll talk to Ryan. You follow behind with the mule, and then the three of us can trap Spencer in a hole or something when he’s a wolf.”

“Wait,” said Jon, looking confused. “How does that help us?”

“Because if he’s trapped in a hole and we’re the only ones who can get him out, he’ll have to listen to us, won’t he?”

“I guess.” He didn’t look too sure. “Maybe I will follow behind, even if we don’t…trap him in a hole. It can’t hurt to try again in a day or so when he’s cooled down a bit, right?”

“That’s the spirit!” Brendon grinned; he’d make a conspirator of Jon yet.

And then, suddenly, Jon was grabbing him, holding him in a quick, hard hug. “Good luck, Brendon Urie,” he murmured. “I’m glad to know you.”

Maybe it was the hug, maybe it was the genuine affection in Jon’s tone, but something about the moment caused certain portions of Brendon’s anatomy to stand at attention in a way they hadn’t since before he’d been thrown into Aquila’s dungeons. Quite a while before, actually. The little voice inside him shrieking _He’s a **priest,** Brendon!_ helped him to squirm out of the embrace just as Spencer turned around, finished saddling Goliath.

“Well,” said Spencer awkwardly, not meeting either Jon’s or Brendon’s eyes, “I suppose this is farewell, then.”

“Not so fast!” Brendon exclaimed. “It just so happens that I happen to be heading in the general direction of Aquila, myself.”

Spencer looked startled. “Do you?” he asked.

“Unbelievable, right? Well, I was thinking about it, and it seems I have unfinished business there. So, I guess, if we’re heading in the same direction, I could maybe help with Goliath or cooking or whatever, though if it’s all the same to you, sir, you’re on your own when it comes to gathering firewood.”

Spencer laughed at that. “All right then!” he said, much happier-looking than he’d been a moment ago. “Hop on! I suppose I can get my own firewood for a couple of days.”

Brendon obeyed with a strange feeling of contentment; jumping on Goliath’s back was actually starting to feel kind of familiar. Spencer urged his horse onward without a further word or look for Jon, but Brendon turned around to catch his eye and grin. For once, Brendon wasn’t alone, and he was actually doing something worthwhile. He hadn’t been so excited in years.

 

 _Wednesday_

“I want him _dead,_ ” said Maja, practically spitting in rage. “Send me out again, Captain.”

“Because that worked so well last time,” snapped Gabe. Secretly, though, he was pleased. He’d never really gotten the impression that Maja liked or respected him. She tolerated him, for Travis’s sake or for the Bishop’s, but, like so many of the troops, she’d never seen Gabriel Saporta as the true Captain. Now, though, any lingering feelings of loyalty for Smith had been burned out of her by mortal wound in Travis’s gut. She was his, now.

“He was wounded, in the shoulder, and the hawk was shot, too.” Maja’s eyes were burning into Gabe’s while her hands tenderly stroked Travis’s face. “When the hawk was shot, he was so demoralized that he scarcely noticed his own wound. He can’t have gotten too far, and he’ll be trailing blood.”

Gabe scowled. The damn hawk again. Had Smith really gone mad? How else to explain his bizarre fixation on that hawk? “We lost some good men,” he said aloud. “And some not-so-good ones. We’ll have to pull men from the City Guard.”

“Then do it!” Maja exclaimed. “Hasn’t the Bishop given you unlimited resources?”

“Yes.” He had, but Gabe wasn’t sure that Beckett remembered that promise anymore. His behavior had grown increasingly erratic since the arrival of the Butcher, a strange hunter whose reputation Gabe knew but with whom he had never worked. The gardens were thick with the smell of rotting flesh, as the Butcher brought carcass after carcass to the Bishop’s sanctum. Wolves, all of them, big black ones. The pile had been steadily growing, and Beckett hardly showed any interest at all in Gabe’s efforts, simply waving him aside to examine another dead wolf.

Travis groaned in pain. It couldn’t be long, now; no man could survive a stomach wound like he’d gotten, and he’d been bleeding for days. They’d done the best they could to staunch the bleeding and ward off infection, but he was running a fever now, slipping in and out of consciousness, and Gabe found himself wishing the man would die already and spare him and Maja the agony of watching him struggle all the way to the grave. He liked McCoy, always had; he was strong and competent and treated Gabe with respect, though he’d been loyal to Smith. But his slow and torturous decline was wearing on Gabe almost as much as it seemed to be wearing on Maja.

A servant, wrinkling his nose, opened the door. “Captain Saporta,” he said, “may I put this in here? We’re running out of room in the pantries downstairs.” He held something out for Gabe’s inspection, and Gabe leaned in close to see what it was.

 _A dead wolf._ Gabe recoiled. “No, you can’t put it in here!” he hissed. “Can’t you see we have an injured man in here? The smell alone’ll kill him!”

“Of course. I beg your pardon, sir.” The servant bowed as best he could with the corpse of a full-grown wolf draped over his arms and departed. Gabe sat back with an involuntary noise of disgust.

“What in God’s name is the Bishop doing with all these wolves?” asked Maja, voicing the very question Gabe had been pondering.

They were probably better off not knowing, Gabe thought. The Bishop had been strange for years, now, but his current behavior was off in a way that made Gabe distinctly nervous.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Maja scrambled to her feet and bowed deeply, but Gabe didn’t need to see that to know that the Bishop had arrived; the chill running through his blood was sign enough. He turned himself from Travis’s bedside to kneel before Beckett and kiss his hand. The Bishop registered his presence with a sharp, sudden expression of intense examination.

“Well?” said Beckett. “Have you caught him? Smith?”

Gabe winced. It was bad enough to admit failure on the best of days, downright humiliating when he had had every advantage on his side and lost to a lone fighting man, a pickpocket, and a hawk. “No, Your Grace,” he answered. “I was coming from the city with reinforcements, and he came upon my men unexpectedly.” It was almost true, he thought.

It wasn’t enough for Beckett. “Your _men_?” he said, his voice deceptively sweet. “How many of them does it take to beat one out-of-practice man?”

“He—he fights like an animal, Your Grace,” stammered Gabe, hating to compliment his enemy even now. “Some of the new men were intimidated and deserted. We punished them and brought the wounded back to be tended. Lieutenant Ivarsson tells me that Smith was wounded, though.” He indicated Maja, who ducked her head politely. “He managed to escape….” And wasn’t _that_ enough to make Gabe want to wipe out his entire Guard and start again, because who the hell ran away from a wounded man? “But he shouldn’t be too hard to catch. The hawk was wounded, too, which seemed to--”

“ _What?_ ” the Bishop asked, his voice as menacing as Gabe had ever heard it. And then Gabe remembered—the Bishop, too, shared Smith’s fascination with the hawk. _Fuck._

“Just a flesh wound, Your Grace,” Gabe hurried to say. “It wasn’t dead, but it distracted Smith long enough for one of our archers to catch him in the shoulder. I’m sure the hawk survived.”

The Bishop stood for a long moment, staring at Gabe, looking as if he were willing Gabe to drop dead on the spot, or struggling to stop fire from coming out of his eyes. Finally, he turned to someone standing behind him in the doorway and said, “Come _in_ , you idiot.” The figure stepped out into the light, revealing himself to be the Butcher, dressed in a blood-stained wolf pelt. Gabe suppressed a shudder of disgust.

“Obviously,” said the Bishop in a deceptively light voice, “I cannot trust _any_ of you to carry out my wishes. I ought to kill all of you now.” The Bishop was a thin man, not at all formidable, and Gabe was fairly certain that he could kill him even without Maja’s help. They were the highest-ranked members of the Bishop’s Guard, after all, and it would be easy enough to blame it on the Butcher. But something underneath the Bishop’s delicate features glowed with otherworldly power, and Gabe found himself staying his hand.

“But I’m a merciful man,” said Beckett, his tone dripping with irony. “I’m not too harsh to give second chances. You shall join forces, combining your two missions into one.”

The Butcher nodded, gazing at the Bishop impassively. Gabe, however, was confused. “You mean you want the Guard to go after a wolf?”

“Not just any wolf,” said Beckett with narrowed eyes. “Find the wolf, you’ll find Smith.” He drew himself up to his full height and looked down his nose at them, an unfathomably cold expression in his eyes. “I don’t give third chances. _Do not fail me_.”

Travis moaned, and Beckett’s sharp glare was broken as he glanced over to the bed. “Who is that?” he asked, sounding more like his usual distracted self.

Not for the first time, Gabe thought the Bishop was losing his mind. “Travis McCoy, one of my lieutenants,” he said. “He was badly wounded in the fight against Smith.”

“Oh,” said Beckett. He held out his hand and made a strange, twisting motion, his lips mouthing unintelligible words. The blood drained from his face, and for a moment he looked faint. But then he swept his robes around himself, returned his attention to Gabe and the Butcher, and said, “So. The wolf,” before sweeping out of the room.

“What,” Gabe said. “What the _hell_ was that?”

“Mother of God!” exclaimed Maja quietly.

“I swear, the man’s getting stranger by the--”

“ _No!_ ” Maja grabbed his sleeve. Gabe stared. No one _ever_ grabbed him like that, not unless they were looking for a fight. But Maja’s voice was soft with wonderment as she said, “Captain, look!”

She was pointing at Travis. Travis, who, for the first time in days, was looking at them with clear eyes, his breath easy and even. “Captain? Maja?” he said. “How long have I been out?”

Maja threw her arms around his neck. “By God!” she said, “McCoy, if ever you scare me like that again, I will kill you—and you know I don’t lie. I will _kill_ you.” Her words were pretty much belied, though, by the tears burning in her eyes, making them shine wetly in the dim torchlight.

“Understood,” said Travis, bringing a large hand up to pat her back. “No more scaring you.”

Gabe couldn’t believe it. The Bishop had just _waved_ his hand—and then—he’d heard the rumors, of course, and half-believed them—that Beckett was a witch, or a devil, or possibly even _the_ Devil. That would explain this magic he’d just done, but—would the Devil really use any of his power to heal? Christ, the whole thing was bizarre beyond words. “How are you feeling?” he asked, hiding his uneasiness behind a gruff mask.

“All right,” said Travis with a shrug. “A little tired. A little dizzy. But--” He pulled up his shirt with his free hand and all three of them (and the Butcher) gazed at the place where his deep, infected, wound had been. It was only a scar, now, pale and smooth, as if it had healed years ago.

Travis met Gabe’s eyes, alarmed. “What the hell just happened?”

Before Gabe could answer, the Butcher smiled a strange, unreadable smile and said, “The Bishop’s a powerful man with many secrets.” His gaze traveled from Travis to Maja to Gabe, and he smiled again, a vaguely smug quirk of the lips that made Gabe want to punch him. “Clearly, he wants your best men ready for this mission, Captain Saporta.”

“My men are ready for anything,” said Gabe aggressively. Whatever it was they were doing chasing a wolf around the countryside, the Guard were certainly more equipped to deal with it than this strange, half-feral hunter. He only hoped that it would be enough. A man who could bring others back from the brink of death could probably do things to the living that Gabe didn’t want to contemplate now, especially if they were done to _him._

 

 _Thursday night_

One might venture to think, Ryan thought wryly, that being the seventh count of Ross would guarantee a certain minimum standard of living. One would, of course, be wrong. He gazed up from his position on—Lord, was he really lying on a straw-covered dirt floor?—to survey his surroundings. A barn, most likely, its wood warped and faded with age, its few emaciated cows staring at him with dull, uninterested eyes. And hovering above him, Brendon Urie, by far the most interesting pickpocket of Ryan’s acquaintance. Urie handed him a bundle of clothes from the saddlebags and turned away while Ryan got dressed.

When he was done, Ryan seated himself on a milking stool and fixed Urie with what he hoped was an intimidating gaze. “How’s Spencer?” heasked shortly. Since they weren’t in Jon Walker’s hovel of a hermitage anymore, obviously Spencer had arrived. “Is he all right?”

Brendon nodded, a wide smile stretching his face into a silly, childlike expression. “He’s fine. I guess the wound in his shoulder wasn’t that bad, because he rode a horse all day without complaining or anything. Not that he’d complain, anyway, because he doesn’t seem the type. But. Anyway, I think the wound’s getting better, because it’s not as if he’s bleeding all over the place or feverish. I think he—you know, wolf-Spencer—is off hunting.”

“Good.” Privately, Ryan worried. He had no doubt that Urie was telling the truth about Spencer’s physical wellbeing, but mentally…he had no idea whether Spencer still maintained hope, or had any sort of plan, or whether he had given into the brooding melancholy that occupied Ryan from time to time.

His expression must have given away more of his worry than he had intended, because Brendon’s smile dimmed somewhat, and he said, “Honest, sir. He’s all right. He’s sort of…angry, right now, I think about you getting shot or the Bishop still being alive or something, but he’s still hopeful, I’d say. He hasn’t given up, I mean. And look!” Urie pulled out Spencer’s huge heirloom sword from behind his back. “He gave us this for the night! I mean, he’ll kill me if I lose it, but now if someone attacks us, we can defend ourselves. You know how to use a sword, right?”

“Of course I do.” God in Heaven, what had Spencer been thinking, to take this chatterbox of a boy along with them and then to leave him with Ryan at night? It seemed particularly cruel of fate, to deprive him of human company for so long only to finally grant it to him in the form of a traitorous priest and an irreverent, talkative thief.

Brendon had stopped speaking, though, and was looking at Ryan with an unsure, vaguely hopeful expression. “Do you want something to eat?” he asked.

It wasn’t entirely a lie when he said, “Yes, please.” He wasn’t especially hungry. He’d probably eaten a squirrel or a rabbit during the day; he could still feel the raw meat lying heavy in his stomach. But there really was something to be said for even the simplest meal of bread and cheese to remind a man of his humanity, his civilization.

Brendon nodded again, and said, more nervously, “Um. We actually have a third member of our party. I sent him out to get food, and he actually just got back before you woke up.” Smiling inanely, he added, “I hope he got fresh butter. And maybe some carrots or something.”

His manner set Ryan on edge. Brendon wouldn’t betray them—he couldn’t, he was facing the noose himself, but then, there were deals to be made, and after all, he’d known Brendon for only three days. He’d been deceived by better friends than that.

It was no guard who hesitantly poked his head into the barn, though, but the familiar shabby figure of Father Jon Walker. “I brought supper,” he said, his anxious tone making it sound more like a question.

“What are you doing here?” asked Ryan, forcing his tone to be even. It was one thing to see Jon in the wrecked castle where they’d parted ways two years ago, but it was quite another to see him here, on the road, knowing Spencer was close by. Lying in this straw, in the middle of the perpetual discomfort and danger that his and Spencer’s lives had become, it was easier to remember his anger.

Jon chewed on his lower lip, looking all the more awkward for the ridiculous beard he seemed to have cultivated since the days when he was Ryan’s priest. When he spoke, it was soft but sure. “We have a plan for breaking the curse.”

Breaking the curse. A plan. For a long moment, the words refused to sink into Ryan’s brain, but hovered above it, an interesting collection of syllables with no distinct meaning. Then, in an instant, the full import of what Jon had said impressed itself on Ryan’s consciousness. “ _What?_ ” he asked, unable to really believe it.

“A plan!” Brendon broke in eagerly. “In three days, there’s going to be this, this cosmic _thing_ where the moon goes in front of the sun, so it’s like it’s both day and night at the same time.”

“It’ll last for about three minutes,” said Jon, “and while the sun is behind the moon, both you and Spencer should be in your human forms. And because these eclipses are powerful events for working magic, if you just confront Beckett and show him that his curse has been undone, the curse should just break without any spell or sacrifice.”

Well. Someone certainly had been studying; the Jon that Ryan knew had known quite a bit about herbs and poultices, but nothing whatsoever about what the Church would consider “dark magic.” Although Ryan himself knew only what he had picked up in conversation with certain enthusiasts and students elsewhere, he could see the logic in what Brendon and Jon were saying. And yet… “What did Spencer say when you told him this?” he asked.

Brendon and Jon exchanged glances. “Well,” Brendon said slowly, “he didn’t really want to listen to the whole story. You see, he just wants to kill the Bishop, and he’s not—well, you know, the man can hold a grudge.”

“You mean he didn’t believe you. Or rather,” he said, more pointedly looking at Jon, “he didn’t believe _you_.”

Jon sighed. “No. No, he didn’t.”

Ryan nodded, feeling a hollow kind of satisfaction at being proven right. Spencer _did_ hold grudges, and he had been known on occasion to let his resentment get the better of him. Ryan suddenly, with a fervor that frightened him, wished that Spencer were here, that the two of them could talk about this without the interference of Brendon and Jon. Was it simply a matter of Spencer’s anger over Jon’s betrayal, or were there other, more serious reasons for doubting that this plan would work?

Ryan had no way of knowing. But it was the only real course of action he had. He carefully looked from Brendon’s face—hopeful, encouraging, slightly impatient—to Jon’s—intent, solemn, painfully sincere—and let out a long, shuddering breath. “Three days, you said?” he asked. “What time?”

For the first time, Jon looked somewhat pleased and taken aback. “It’s—according to my calculations, it should take place sometime in the late morning. Maybe an hour and a half before midday.”

Damn. Spencer would have to get them to the church, then. “How were you planning to get Spencer to agree to this, then?”

Brendon was about to answer when he paused. A strange, frightened expression that Ryan didn’t recognize passed over his face, and he said, “Someone’s coming.”

Jon looked confused, but Ryan could hear it, too, the soft rolling thump of a half-dozen or so horses running over soft ground. He grabbed Spencer’s sword and said, “Get behind me.” Ryan wasn’t much of a swordsman, as he’d always had something more important to do than practice, but he was almost certainly better than an escaped petty thief and a perpetually drunk priest, and that would have to do.

“Smith!” bellowed a vaguely familiar voice. “If you and Urie are holed up in there, you may as well come out now, and we’ll give you both a quick death. Trust me, it beats the hell out of what you’ll get if we have to come in.”

Saporta, Ryan thought. He’d always been good at putting a little extra menace into a threat. “Calm down,” he told Brendon, whose face was practically paralyzed with fear. “There can’t be more than six of them out there, and between me and Spencer, I think we can handle them.”

Brendon’s face cleared, perhaps remembering how, even out of his human mind, Spencer had protected him from that skinny woodsman with the knife. Ryan only hoped his words of encouragement would prove true.

There was a long silence. Ryan strained his ears; he could still hear the horses snorting and pawing the ground, but barely, as if they’d moved far away. There were no men talking, no orders being shouted. It should have relieved him; instead it filled him with a heavy feeling of dread.

“Are they gone?” whispered Brendon loudly, and Jon hushed him, his eyes darting nervously around.

“Do you smell something?” the priest asked Ryan under his breath. “Like…smoke?”

 _The Devil take Gabe Saporta!_ “They’ve set something in the barn on fire!” he snapped, silence forgotten. “Find it, for God’s sake, and put it out!”

His two companions dashed off, poking their heads into the stalls and ignoring the frightened noises of the cows. “In here!” shouted Brendon from the left side of the barn, where the smoke seemed to be gathering the quickest. “There’s a knot hole in the wood-- they must have stuck a torch through it and set the straw on fire!”

He was right. The straw in one corner of the stall was already ablaze, and it was spreading to the cracked wood of the wall dividing one stall from the next. “Get something to beat it out!” Ryan shouted, looking around for a horse blanket or a cleaning rag or a bucket or anything, _anything_ they could use to extinguish the fire before the smoke or flames forced them out among their enemies.

Jon ran across to the stall, pushing Brendon out of the way and falling upon the flames with the folds of his habit, beating at it with his wide sleeves and train. _Damn it_ , Ryan thought, _it’s not enough, it’ll burn him before he can put it out_ , but then Brendon, who had momentarily disappeared, shouted from the back, “There’s a water trough back here!” Then he was dragging it— _slowly, too slowly_ —and Ryan ran to help him. It was heavy, even with water sloshing out of it with every step, but they managed to get it into the stall and tip it onto the fire, splashing Jon in the process.

It made a loud hissing noise, and what was left of the fire seemed to vanish under the damp straw. But the smoke was still thick and choking. There was a crash from the front, and _fuck_ , how had the Guard found them, and why were they coming down so hard on them now?

Three figures, two tall and one short, made their way through the haze. Ryan picked up the sword, which he had dropped in the stall during the fire, and Jon and Brendon positioned themselves behind the trough, which could probably function as a weapon in a pinch, as well. Now if only they could _see…_.

Gabe Saporta materialized suddenly, his sword cutting through the aging wood of the stall door with a dry crack. Ryan aimed a blow at him, but Saporta deflected it with his own sword and hit back, and Saporta could put a lot more force behind his blows. Ryan was knocked flat on his back, wheezing.

Another large figure whom Ryan vaguely recognized from Spencer’s old troop— _McCoy_ , his name supplied, appeared, stepping over Ryan and Saporta to the corner where Jon and Brendon were.

“So, we meet again,” he said to one of them. McCoy must have been in the earlier fight where Ryan was wounded; perhaps he himself shot the arrow that hit Spencer, Ryan thought.

Ryan had to protect them, had to find a way to execute their plan to break the curse. He stumbled to his feet, his muscles aching, and gripped his sword with both hands.

Brendon and Jon pushed the trough into McCoy, but he side-stepped it easily and picked Brendon up by the neck of his tunic as easily as if he were picking up a kitten. Ryan thrust his sword in McCoy’s direction, but Saporta, who had been watching the proceedings with a grim kind of amusement, brought his weapon down on top of Ryan’s with such force that the sword was knocked from his hands, and a tap from the flat of Saporta’s blade left Ryan’s head spinning. Or maybe it was the lack of air in his lungs that was making him dizzy. It was getting harder to breathe by the minute.

Jon, who seemed to be trying to free Brendon from McCoy’s grasp without being grabbed himself, ducked down to pick up the sword.

“Holy shit,” said Saporta, “it’s like playing blind man’s bluff with infants. Take him out and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Right,” said McCoy. “Sorry, Father,” he said to Jon, bringing down the hilt of his sword on the priest’s head. Ryan winced, his own head throbbing as if in sympathy. He felt Saporta grab him, but before he could muster the energy to fight back, the iron band around his brain seemed to tighten, and the burning in his lungs subsided into merciful nothingness.

***

Travis McCoy examined the three prisoners with a sense that he was missing something. Count Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith’s lover; Brendon Urie, the thief Smith had saved; Jon Walker, the priest that had given Smith and Ross away to the Bishop—Spencer Smith was the only link between the three of them, and yet Smith himself was nowhere to be found. Why?

Next to him, Maja adjusted her sword, looking menacing. Even by the flickering firelight, Travis could see the tension in her muscles. He wasn’t quite sure what had gotten her so upset, but he suspected it was residual anger at Brendon Urie for the various disasters he’d been involved with.

Ross blinked and groaned, and Travis sighed with relief. He didn’t even want to think about what the Bishop would do to them if they’d accidentally killed the person most likely to lead them to Spencer Smith and his mysterious hawk. Besides, having been in the Guard for almost three years, Travis knew damn well that Smith and Ross weren’t the only men who liked men in the upper circles of Aquila’s court, and he’d always felt that Smith and Ross had been dealt an unfair hand. If they had to die, Travis didn’t especially want it to be by his hands.

Gabe, apparently able to sense the slightest hint of consciousness even from his position on the other side of the fire, swooped in to hover over Ross’s face. “Well, well, well,” he said with a smirk. “Look who’s waking up.”

Ross’s eyes darted to where Urie and Walker still lay, bound and unconscious, and then he glared at Gabe, his disgust discernable even through the layers of fuzzy confusion. “What do you want?” he asked flatly, and Travis was impressed at the utter lack of fear, or even interest, in his hoarse voice.

“What do you _think_ I want, catamite?” Gabe asked, losing the smirk. “ _Smith_. I want _Smith._ ”

“Well,” Ross said coolly as he sat up, “that’s a pity. He doesn’t seem to be here, does he?”

Gabe backhanded Ross across the face, and Travis hid a wince. He understood where Gabe was coming from. His family was foreign, from a trading port beyond the sea, which hadn’t made Travis’s career easy. So, yeah, he knew how frustrating and demoralizing it was to have to constantly prove your worth—that mutual understanding was probably what made Gabe even trust him and Maja—but Gabe’s casual brutality still made Travis uncomfortable at times. Maja narrowed her eyes, and Travis thought the disgust in her expression was probably aimed at their captain. It was hard to tell with Maja, though.

Ross didn’t cry out, letting out only a small noise of pain, but that was enough to awaken Urie, who sprang instantly into alertness. Travis guessed it paid to be a light sleeper when you were an escaped criminal.

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking with wide eyes at Gabe, Travis, and Maja.

“As if you couldn’t guess,” snapped Maja. “We’re looking for Smith, the same as last time.”

“Oh.” Urie bit his lower lip and shot a worried glance first at Ross, whose nose was bleeding, and then at Walker, who was still out cold. “Um, Captain Smith isn’t here. He, uh, he rode off to, uh, to get provisions.”

Damn, the boy was an awful liar. “Right,” said Travis. “He left his horse and mule tied up outside the barn, and he rode off to get provisions, like the fresh vegetables and bread and salted meat and butter in their saddlebags.”

Urie blanched, but he managed to shrug with some semblance of nonchalance and said, “Well, then I don’t know. It’s not like he answers to me.”

True enough, and what was more, from what Travis remembered of Captain Smith, he wasn’t likely to tell Ross, Urie, and Walker any information that could put them in danger. He was the lone wolf kind of man. Speaking of which… “I think we’re wasting our time here, Captain,” said Travis to Gabe. “The Bishop said we’d find Smith when we found the wolf.”

Travis didn’t miss the way Ross’s mouth opened in shocked fear at this pronouncement, but the expression was instantly smoothed into his usual cool mask, and Travis didn’t see the need to push; he was obviously on the right track. But Gabe scowled. “What the hell does the Bishop know about finding people?” He aimed a vicious kick at Walker, causing Urie to make an inarticulate noise of outrage and launch himself at Gabe. Gabe stepped lightly aside and said to Travis, “ _I’ll_ decide when we’re wasting our time. You just do what I goddamned tell you to. Wake up!” This last was addressed to Walker, along with another kick. Travis felt the bitter rise of anger in his throat. Maybe Gabe had been reared by wolves, but Travis had been raised to show respect for men of the cloth, and if Gabe thought he was going to try his usual tactics on a priest while Travis stood by and watched, he was just going to have to think again.

Walker groaned and rolled onto his side. Urie, sitting between him and Ross, levered him up with his bound hands. “You all right?” asked Urie anxiously, and damn, it was a sad day when a street rat pickpocket had more sense of propriety than the captain of the Bishop’s Guard.

Walker nodded. “You two?”

Ross shrugged elaborately, giving Travis, Maja, and Gabe a look of complete disdain. “I’ve been better, Father Walker,” he said. “Apparently, the lady and gentlemen want to know where Captain Smith is. I don’t suppose you could tell them, could you?”

Walker looked at the ground for a minute before looking up again and saying, “I haven’t seen him.”

“Like hell,” said Gabe with a snort. He was about to speak again, but Maja interrupted him.

“Look,” she said, pointing. “The Butcher is back.”

Sure enough, the Butcher’s lanky form was clearly silhouetted against the bright moonlight, something dark draped over his shoulder. Probably another wolf’s corpse, Travis thought with disgust.

Gabe turned his attention from the prisoners to glare at the Butcher. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked sharply. “We could have used your help catching these three.”

The Butcher shrugged with his free shoulder. “Doesn’t look to me like you needed any help.” He slung his burden—Travis had been right, it was a huge black wolf, its head mangled by a trap—off his shoulder onto the ground in front of the prisoners. You’d have to have been a blind man to have missed Ross’s reaction this time, Travis thought. He gave an involuntary cry of horror and somehow jerked his body away from the corpse while bringing his face closer to examine it. As much as Smith loved that hawk, Ross seemed to love wolves.

The Butcher fixed his eyes on Ross and, with a slight, unpleasant smile curling the corners of his lips, said, “I’ve been setting traps for our wolf friend. I’ve already gotten one—not yet the one His Grace was looking for, but we’ll catch him soon enough.”

“Doesn’t the Bishop have better things to do than hunt wolves?” asked Urie defiantly, receiving a blow from Gabe for his trouble. The thief subsided and leaned into Walker, whose face was tightened with anger. In the distance, a wolf howled, and the Butcher grinned at Ross’s expression of fear.

“This is bullshit,” muttered Maja beside him, her own face drawn with fatigue and irritation. Her hand found his briefly and squeezed, as if she were reassuring herself of his solidity, and he smiled down on her. His sister in arms. He was inclined to agree with her—there were so many things about the proceedings that didn’t sit right with Travis, from the Butcher’s strange mission to Gabe’s treatment of the prisoners to the weird, vaguely supernatural aura of mystery about the whole thing. Travis missed the days when most of his time had been spent chasing actual criminals.

Urie straightened up, bit his lip with a nervous look at Ross, and said, “Uh. I know where your wolf is.”

Ross and Walker shot him incredulous looks. Travis wasn’t really inclined to believe him, either; he couldn’t imagine that Brendon Urie, city pickpocket, was a better tracker than the Butcher. But Gabe turned on him, instantly interested. “Oh, you do, do you?” he asked.

Urie nodded eagerly. “Yeah. I mean, I might need some help from Jon and Ryan to remember just where his den is, but yeah, I know where he usually hunts.”

“You do not, you lying little weasel,” snapped Maja, but Gabe shushed her.

“If you’re lying, Urie,” he said, “I’m going to kill you, slowly. But first I’m going to pick one of your friends here and hang him from a tree until his tongue turns blue and he shits himself.” He looked at the prisoners consideringly and added, “Probably the priest. Ross is worth money.”

 _The hell with that_ , thought Travis, but he kept his silence, waiting to see where this was heading. Urie gulped but nodded again. “No, yeah, you can all come with us, and if your tracker says, you know, ‘I’d never look for a wolf _here!_ ’ you can do whatever you want.”

Walker and Ross didn’t look at all happy with this plan. Neither did Maja. Travis wasn’t so sure he liked it, either. “Sir?” he said to Gabe. “I’m fairly sure he’s just trying to get us all into the woods so he can escape.”

Gabe shoved a long, cruelly sharp knife into his belt and smiled meanly at Travis. “I’d like to see him try.” To Urie, he said, “You’re a pretty clever fellow, right?”

Urie stared at Gabe, his confusion apparently overtaking his fear for a minute. “I guess so.”

“Well, then.” Gabe took the knife from his pocket and _licked_ the blade, giving Urie a vicious grin. “I guess I don’t have to tell you what I’m gonna do with this if you try anything funny. Do I?”

Urie shook his head frantically, and Gabe smirked at Travis. Maja muttered, “The man is a lunatic. He should be locked up.”

Travis wasn’t the kind of man who spoke badly of his commander, but he couldn’t help nodding.

The sky was turning a slightly paler shade of gray in the east, and Travis noticed that Ross’s eyes were continually drawn to it as they made their way along the path the Butcher had taken to meet them. (As a matter of fact, they were pretty much exactly following in his footsteps, as marked by the trail of wolf blood, which made Travis all the more certain that Urie was planning something.) Urie kept up a fairly steady pace, occasionally giving Gabe a placating smile, while Walker hung back with Ross and Maja, looking around with a kind of frightened alertness. Travis could relate; the Butcher was walking directly behind him, and having the tracker where he couldn’t see him made Travis nervous.

It was hard to keep track of the time with the woods blocking their view of the sky, but Travis guessed they’d been walking for an hour or a little more when Ross stumbled over a tree root. He couldn’t catch himself with his hands bound behind his back, and he ended up lying flat on the ground, his face scratched by the brush. Walker immediately squatted down beside him and Urie turned around to join them, but Gabe stuck out a hand to stop him.

“What the hell, Urie?” he asked, sounding tired and irritated. “I’m about five minutes away from hanging you with your own intestines if we don’t find this wolf.”

“No, no, no,” said Urie quickly. “We’re almost there, just….” Something seemed to catch Urie’s eye, and his face brightened visibly. “There! Right there!” He pointed. “You see, um, that cluster of trees there? Well, you can’t see it from here, but there’s, like, a pile of sticks and branches and stuff that the wolf uses as a shelter sometimes.”

“I don’t see anything,” Gabe said, brushing by Urie and taking a few steps forward.

Travis would later try to recall the exact sequence of events, what, precisely, happened next, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out when and how Urie had managed to snatch the knife from Gabe’s belt with his bound hands, or cut the ropes around his wrists without anyone noticing. However it happened, in the seconds after Gabe stepped in front of him, Urie thrust the knife into Gabe’s lower back.

It wasn’t a fatal wound, or even a very serious one—Travis had seen enough combat to know that. But it was enough to startle Gabe, enough to throw all of them off balance and let Urie dash into the surrounding woods, the Butcher at his heels.

“Ryan! Jon!” Urie yelled, throwing the knife low to the ground in their general direction. Maja leaped for it, but Ross was faster, trapping it between his feet and quickly sawing off the ropes that bound him.

Travis still wasn’t about to offer a priest real violence, but he didn’t have any problems with grabbing him by the neck of his habit to prevent another escape. Walker struggled wildly, but he was a hell of a lot smaller than Travis and obviously without much in the way of combat experience. Travis threw him over his shoulder and shouted, “Maja, you need help?” As far as he was concerned, the Butcher and Gabe could handle Urie between the two of them.

“Fine,” said Maja, sounding annoyed. That was always the trouble with fighting noblemen—even the prissiest and scrawniest among them knew how to use a sword, and in Ryan Ross’s case, how to swordfight with a damn knife. Travis waded into the fight, careful not to get in Maja’s way while still pressing Ross into a corner.

In the meantime, from what Travis could tell, Urie seemed to be leading Gabe and the Butcher on a merry chase. Gabe was lagging behind, bleeding from the wound in his back, but the Butcher was following intently on Urie’s heels. So intently, in fact, that when Urie bent over ever-so-briefly to pick up something glinting in the grass, Travis recognized it before the Butcher did.

“God in heaven!” he exclaimed. “Butcher, it’s a _wolf trap!_ Duck!”

He did, but not quick enough; Urie, who was swinging the trap around by its handle as if it were a rope he was using to catch a runaway cow, let it fly, right into the arms the Butcher brought up to shield his head. The crunch of bone was audible even through the thick underbrush of the forest, and even Gabe winced at the Butcher’s horrifying shriek of pain. _Lord!_ Travis thought. He didn’t especially like the Butcher, didn’t understand why the Bishop had forced him and Gabe and Maja to work with him, but he certainly didn’t wish _that_ on him.

Walker took advantage of Travis’s distraction, and kicking him in the chest, managed to hop down and run over to where Ross and Maja, both startled-looking, were still facing off. “Ryan!” he shouted. “It’s almost daybreak! Give me the knife!”

Travis failed to understand what in the world those two statements had to do with each other, but it didn’t matter; this whole mission was going to hell in a handbasket, and with the Butcher and Gabe both out of commission, he and Maja were going to have to take care of things. He picked up his sword, which he’d dropped the second Urie let the trap fly, and moved to close in on the now weaponless Ross and distracted Walker.

And then he stopped.

“The _hell_?” he whispered, and he could hear Maja muttering a charm against evil. Ross was…he didn’t even have words to describe what was happening to Ross. Travis’s eyes were watering—surely, this was something mankind had never been meant to see. Ross’s form was wavering, shifting, before their very eyes. He was a hawk, he was a man, he was somehow both at once. Hair became feathers, arms flattened and shortened and transformed into wings, a human face sharpened and glared with animalistic fury. At some point, Ross let out a cry of pain, a cry that seemed to melt seamlessly into a hawk’s scream.

 _Christ._ It was true, then, the tale that the Bishop had sold his soul for the power to change a man into an animal. Travis had never held stock in such wives’ tales, and though his own miraculous healing had made Gabe a little nervous, it just made Travis think that perhaps, despite his faults, God had blessed William Beckett with the power to perform miracles. Now, though…Travis shuddered. He would rather have died than be saved by a power that wrought such a curse on a man. Maja crossed herself, and Travis repeated the gesture. This, he thought fervently, was not what he had signed up for when he joined the Guard.

Urie and Walker had, for a moment, been paralyzed like everyone else with shock, but it was no time at all before Walker was scooping the hawk that had been Ryan Ross into his arms and thrusting it towards the sky, where it screeched and freed itself to swoop in and out of the trees. “Brendon!” yelled the priest. “Run! Ryan will follow!” Urie nodded and stepped over the limp, bloodied form of the Butcher to run after Walker. In a moment, both of them had vanished into the early morning haze that clung to the leaves and branches. Travis didn’t have the heart to follow them.

“Travis,” said Maja softly, and Travis turned his head to look at her, because her voice was quiet, but it held a note of steel in it that he hadn’t heard in a long while. “I don’t care what you do,” she said, “but I will not continue to work for a man who does the Devil’s work while claiming to be a man of God.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” said Travis. “Let’s find Gabe and the Butcher a healer and get the hell out of here. My cousin says the Duchess of Salpeter is looking to expand her personal guard, now that she’s started to travel on the King’s diplomatic journeys. Wanna try for it?”

Maja gave him the same bright smile she’d given him the day she’d applied for the Bishop’s Guard, confident that she could fight as hard or shoot as far as any man. It was a smile that invited any challenge, any danger, a smile that Travis had always loved. “That sounds good to me,” she said, and they went to help their erstwhile companions back to the campsite.

 

 _Friday_

The day started off badly, and only got worse from there. Brendon’s throat was scratchy and his head hurt from where Saporta had hit him, and he could see that Jon was still a little wobbly from getting hit in the head with the sword hilt. None of it mattered, though, because they had to _run_ , they had to get away from the Guard and that creepy hunter, and then they had to find Spencer, and then they had to somehow get themselves to Aquila without Spencer killing the Bishop. Or them.

It was Brendon who stumbled over Spencer, and despite the need to be quiet and avoid attention, he couldn’t help but scream, “Jon! Jon, come here, help!” because Spencer was covered in blood, lying completely naked and unconscious in the tall, snow-covered grass.

Jon knelt by Spencer’s side and felt for wounds with quick, sure hands. “I don’t think the blood’s his,” he said finally, a relieved smile on his face. “Are there any—hey, there, look.” Brendon looked where Jon was pointing to see something he hadn’t noticed in his panic at discovering Spencer: a bloody chunk of bone and flesh, probably from the hindquarters of a deer. It seemed Spencer’d had a successful hunt the previous night.

“Oh, thank God,” said Brendon with a sigh. It would have been just too much, to escape from the Guard only to find that Spencer’d been caught in one of those stupid traps. (He wondered how far the hunter had spread them, and hoped it wasn’t too far. He had enough to worry about without trying not to step in traps.)

Jon patted his back comfortingly. “It’s all right, you’re fine,” he said. “That was some pretty fast thinking you did back there.” He actually sounded impressed, and Brendon’s fear receded somewhat to make room for a warm rush of pride.

“Well,” he said modestly, “that’s the kind of thing pickpockets get pretty good at. Escapes, I mean. But also, obviously, stealing stuff from people’s belts, because that’s what we actually do. Or, you know, I used to, before I gave up being a pickpocket.”

“I’m glad you knew what to do, because I sure as hell didn’t,” said Jon earnestly. “That was about the best display of pickpocketing skills I’ve ever seen.”

Brendon could feel himself blush. “You think it’s enough for God to forgive me for all the stuff I stole before?”

Jon’s face grew more serious, and the gravity of his gaze forced Brendon to meet his eyes. “I wouldn’t even pretend to know what God thinks of all this, Brendon,” he said, “but I honestly believe that right now, we’re acting out some kind of divine plan, and I think what you just did is proof that you have an important part in it—not in spite of who you are, but _because_ of it.”

There wasn’t an ounce of disbelief in Jon’s voice, and Brendon felt chills run up and down his spine. _You could have just told me, God_ , he said silently. _We’ve been talking all this time, and you never told me about any of this._

But he didn’t have any time to ponder the vagaries of divine will further, because at that point Spencer rolled over, groaned, and said, “Fuck!”

“Spencer!” Brendon could barely contain his enthusiasm as he helped Spencer sit up. They’d all made it through the night’s adventures, and soon enough they’d be in Aquila, breaking the curse.

Spencer seemed considerably less happy about things. He blinked and looked at himself, and then he gave Brendon a fierce glare. “Where are our things?”

 _Oh._ “Things?” said Brendon. He’d forgotten, actually, about Goliath and the saddlebags and Jon’s mule. They just hadn’t seemed important while they were making their escape. Damn it, they were probably back at the Guard’s campsite by the burnt-out barn. Spencer’s sword, too. Spencer was going to _kill_ him.

“Yes, our _things_ , you twit!” spat out Spencer. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m _naked_ , and we’re going to have a hell of a time getting to Aquila without a horse.” He looked around, almost frantic, until his eyes stopped on Jon. “What,” he ground out. It didn’t sound like a question. “What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

“Just here to help,” said Jon, rubbing at the lump on his head. Ryan screeched at that moment from somewhere above their heads and swooped out of the sky to land on Jon’s shoulder. Spencer stared with a mixture of shock and betrayal in his eyes that actually hurt Brendon’s stomach a little.

“Ryan?” said Spencer softly, and the bird stared at him haughtily before hopping from Jon’s shoulder to perch in a tree.

“It’s not….” For once, Jon’s never-ending store of composure in his dealings with Spencer had run out, and he looked as distressed as Brendon had ever seen him. “You have to understand—last night, we--” The look Spencer shot him at those words was positively _venomous_ , and Jon shut his mouth. He gave Spencer one last unsure look before sighing and turning his gaze towards the ground.

It made Brendon _angry_. Honestly, as if Ryan and Jon were going to—to _have an affair_ or something behind Spencer’s back! The whole idea was too absurd for words. “The Guard caught us last night,” he blurted out. “If Ryan wasn’t such a good fighter and Jon hadn’t smelled the barn burning and I wasn’t so brilliant at coming up with plans, I don’t know what would’ve happened.”

Spencer turned his attention to Brendon, staring as if Brendon had suddenly grown another head. “What on earth are you talking about?” he asked. Brendon took a deep breath and told the whole story of what had happened, with a few interruptions and additions from Jon. When they had finished, Spencer took a deep breath and stared blankly into space for a moment. Finally, he said, “Well. I’m really cold. Do you think if we went back to that campsite, I’d be able to get Goliath and my saddlebags before they caught me?”

Brendon and Jon just blinked at him. He didn’t _sound_ angry. His tone was conversational, even a little vulnerable. He looked a lot smaller without his armor and thick black tunics and cloak, younger and softer. Kind of pretty, actually. Brendon could understand why Ryan had fallen for him, besides the attraction of his swordfighting.

“Um,” said Jon, and to Brendon’s complete and utter shock, he started to pull off his habit. Brendon had always kind of thought that he was naked under its draping black folds, had occasionally (and guiltily) pictured his body under the wool. As it turned out, under the habit Jon had on a faded and worn tunic and a pair of dirty trousers that looked like he used them when he weeded the garden. For all Brendon knew, he did.

He watched as Jon turned the habit right-side out and offered it to Spencer. “It’s—-it might not fit,” he said hesitantly. “And it’s pretty dirty. But it should keep you warm enough until we can get back to find our mounts.”

Spencer stared at the wrinkled garment as if he had absolutely no idea what it was, and then gave Jon a hard glance as if he thought Jon had hidden something unpleasant underneath. Brendon was about to yell at Spencer not to be an _idiot_ when the corner of Spencer’s mouth curled up, ever-so-slightly, into a smile. He reached out for the habit and pulled it over his head, looking more like a silly novice priest than a battle-hardened warrior. “Thank you,” he said, his voice even.

Jon nodded, smiling incredulously. “You’re welcome.”

Spencer was still shoeless, and Jon’s sandals weren’t likely to be any more help to him than they were to Jon, so Brendon and Jon helped him over the frozen ground in the direction Brendon thought they had come. As it turned out, Jon wasn’t half bad at finding the path they had taken and he was better at remembering the details than Brendon, and so between the two of them they finally made it back to the burnt-out remains of the Guard’s campfire.

To Brendon’s surprise and relief, the horse and mule were there and the guards weren’t. The new provisions Jon had picked up were gone, but the saddlebags still hung from Goliath’s and Dylan the mule’s saddles, and a quick inspection revealed that the rest of their contents were untouched. Even Spencer’s sword was still there, and the money Brendon had stolen from the fishermen. _Yes!_ Brendon thought. For once, perhaps things would be easy.

He should have known better than to even think it.

Spencer seemed okay with Jon’s company when they were all riding silently together, but the second Jon drew a shaky, nervous breath and said, “Um. About the Bishop….” Spencer’s face hardened, his lips pressed together into a firm line.

“Don’t even start,” said Spencer.

Brendon groaned. He didn’t exactly want to be ejected from his position behind Spencer on Goliath, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to watch Spencer crush the happiness from himself and Jon with his stubbornness, either. “What could it hurt?” Brendon asked in his most charming, placating voice. “I mean, we’re going to Aquila, anyway. What does the timing matter? And then if it doesn’t work, you can kill the Bishop, no harm done.” He paused. “Well, except to the Bishop, I mean.”

“No _harm?_ ” Spencer wheeled around and glared. “Do you have _any_ idea how hard I’ve looked for a way to break this curse? Ryan and I have found a thousand hedgewitches and lunatics and—and priests with an interest in the supernatural, who’ve all thought they could break it. I’ve drunk potions, I’ve chanted around fires, I’ve done goddamned animal sacrifices. And every time it failed, it hurt just a little bit more. I’m done with it. I’m only going to get _one_ shot at Beckett, to make him pay for everything he’s done to us. I’m not going to waste it doing chants or casting spells or _whatever_ it is you want me to do.” He scratched almost angrily around Ryan’s neck feathers and then said, “If you want to keep riding with me, shut the hell up. Both of you.”

Brendon looked over at Jon. The sadness and defeat but most of all the compassion in his face made Brendon’s heart hurt, and he had to look away. _This is ridiculous, Lord,_ he thought angrily. _Why would you save Spencer and the rest of us from the Guard if you weren’t going to let us break the curse? Why would you make me… care about someone if you knew it was someone who couldn’t care back? What kind of sadistic show are you running, here?_

There was no answer, though, either in the form of a sign or just some brilliant flash of inspiration on Brendon’s part, so he kept his silence and wished that Dylan was big enough to carry two people.

The rest of the day passed in a haze of sore muscles and heavy eyelids. Brendon wondered if Spencer’s turning into a wolf somehow made him immune to sleepiness, because he showed no sign of having been affected by night’s adventures. Brendon, on the other hand, was having real difficulty not burrowing his face into Spencer’s back and falling asleep there. He dozed off and woke up in irregular intervals, and night fell before he had even noticed it. Spencer looked up at one point and said, “The sun’s setting.”

Brendon looked around. As far as he could remember, the sun hadn’t been visible for hours, not since they’d ridden into a particularly thick patch of woods. “How can you tell?”

Spencer raised an eyebrow at him. “This might amaze you, but I’ve actually developed something of a sense for knowing when the sun’s setting. Inasmuch as I turn into a wolf at that point, and all.”

Oh. Right. Brendon blushed, and an encouraging smile from Jon didn’t really help with that. Spencer dismounted and began to remove his sword scabbard from his belt. Halfway through, he stopped and gave Brendon a penetrating look. “Can I trust you to take care of my sword?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Brendon, offended. “It wasn’t my fault, last time! They set the barn on fire.”

Spencer nodded, looking as if he didn’t care very much. “All right. And I know I can trust you to take care of Ryan, because I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

Honestly, weren’t they past the death threats at this point? Trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice, Brendon said, “Captain Smith. I’ll protect Ryan as best I can, I promise. Of course, since he actually knows how to use a sword, he’ll probably end up protecting me if anything happens. But I’d totally be willing to protect him, you know?”

“Me, too,” said Jon softly.

Spencer looked sharply in Jon’s direction. He seemed satisfied by whatever he saw, because he nodded determinedly and started taking off his clothes. “Shut up,” he said, though Brendon hadn’t said anything. (He might have giggled a little, but only a bit, and he couldn’t help that, could he?) “I don’t want to lose another set of clothing, so watch over these.”

Brendon nodded. “Be careful!” he said as Spencer made his way into the woods, his pale body standing out against the dark trees and the shadowy tracks he left in the snow. Ryan shrieked from his position on Goliath’s saddle horn, probably in farewell, and then vanished himself into the darkening sky.

“So,” said Brendon after a long moment of silence had passed, “What now?”

Jon shrugged. He looked even worse than Brendon felt; there were dark circles under his eyes, and his beard appeared to be taking over his face. “I suppose we should wait for Ryan,” he said. “He can’t have gone far, I don’t think.”

“I hope not,” said Brendon. He really didn’t feel up to the task of searching for Ryan in the dark. “We should start a fire. In case he comes looking for us.”

Jon nodded, but neither of them moved. Brendon hurt in every part of his body, but there was still a sort of achy comfort in sitting still in Goliath’s saddle. Not even the bitter cold biting through his thin clothing could induce him to get down to start the fire. Finally, Jon slid off Dylan and, muttering “I need a drink” under his breath, started putting together a small pile of wood.

Brendon felt guilty, making Jon do all the work, and so he got down and rummaged around in Goliath’s saddlebags until he found some dry tinder and a flint to start the fire with. As he knelt in the wet, fluffy snow by the wood pile, a thought occurred to him, and he said, “So…if we want to convince Spencer not to kill the Bishop, we kind of have to get Ryan’s help tonight, right? Because we have tonight, and then tomorrow, and then tomorrow night, and...isn’t that it?”

“Yeah,” said Jon, who bit his lower lip unhappily for a moment. “I hope he has some brilliant idea, because I really think our lives might be in danger if we bring it up with Spencer again.”

“You really think he’d hurt us?” Brendon frowned. Sure, Spencer was pretty much always in an irritable mood, and he did threaten violence a lot, but Brendon still felt like he wasn’t the kind of man who’d really ever carry through on the threats. At least, not for something as trivial as being annoying. Jon wouldn’t have spent all that time helping him and Ryan wouldn’t still be in love with him if he weren’t a good man underneath it all, would they?

Jon sighed. “I don’t know. The Spencer Smith I knew two years ago wouldn’t, but obviously a lot has changed since then.”

“Well,” came a quiet voice from the darkness, “we’re all looking a bit glum, given our rather miraculous escape from the Guard, aren’t we?”

“Ryan!” Brendon whirled around to see Ryan emerging from a dark grove, wrapped in a blanket. Ignoring his rapidly-diminishing sense of propriety, he threw himself on Ryan in an embrace, and to his surprise and pleasure, Ryan hesitantly returned it, patting him tentatively on the back. He withdrew and grinned.

“It’s a good thing you’re here!” he said. “We were just trying to think of ways to convince Spencer to go along with our plan.”

Ryan snorted. “Well, best of luck with that. No offense meant to either of you, but I somewhat doubt he’ll be persuaded to forget his grudge against the Bishop for your sakes.”

“That’s the thing, though,” said Jon. “It’s not for our sakes—we want to get him to do it for his own sake, and for yours. I really think that this is how to break the curse.”

Ryan sighed and gave a half-hearted shrug, turning his face from Brendon and Jon to stare into the moonlit sky. “You’re not the first to say that.”

“We know,” Jon said solemnly. Brendon couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to add at that, so he stared at Ryan in what he hoped was a sincere way.

Ryan was silent for a long moment. Finally he said, “All right. What do you propose?”

Brendon could barely contain his excitement, and he flapped his hands around in an attempt to bleed off some of the wild energy that had suddenly infused his blood. Jon laughed, and Ryan gave him a strange look, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Yes! Excellent! Splendid!” he said. “So I was thinking we could dig a hole or something and then Spencer’d fall in it and then when he turned back into a human he’d be stuck in a hole and he’d have to listen to us.”

“I see,” said Ryan, his eyebrows raised in an expression of incredulity. “Well, aside from the fact that this plan seems more likely to get you killed by Spencer than convince him of anything, I see no flaws in it.”

“Have you got any better ideas?”

“I could write him a letter, telling him to listen to you,” Ryan suggested, but Jon shook his head.

“Nothing to write with, or on.”

“And I suppose if we left for Aquila without him,” said Ryan, apparently to himself, “he’d just follow us, and then he’d want to kill the Bishop and you. As much as it pains me to say it, Urie’s hare-brained scheme might be the most viable plan we have.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief.

“Yes!” Brendon exclaimed again, clapping Jon on the back

“I hope you realize, though, that there’s no way in hell _I’m_ digging a hole,” said Ryan haughtily.

“That’s all right,” said Brendon. “We’ll need someone to get Jon and me out, anyway.”

Ryan rolled his eyes.

They found what seemed like a hill but turned out to be a huge snow drift, formed into a mound by the shrieking wind. Since they didn’t actually have any shovels, this seemed like a much better bet than trying to dig into the frozen ground. After Jon had been persuaded to trade his sandals for Spencer’s boots (not as hard as Brendon had feared, given how cold it was), the two of them began to dig while Ryan stood by with a rope in case the snow should give way beneath them.

It was slow going. The snow was heavy and wet and soaked into Brendon’s already insufficent clothes, and he wondered if he’d ever be warm again. It hadn’t always been this cold, Brendon was sure of it—he could remember winters when he was a boy when the weather hadn’t gone below freezing, and this wasn’t even really winter yet. He mentioned this to Jon, who paused from rubbing his hands together and blowing on them.

“I mean, I could just be crazy, or forgetful,” said Brendon, “but I really feel like it’s gotten ridiculously cold the last couple of years.”

“You’re not wrong.” Jon broke a hard, frozen chunk of ice and snow with the heel of his boot as he talked. “I’m not exactly an expert on the subject, but all my sources say that the kind of black magic the Bishop’s done, turning people into animals every night and day, takes a lot of power. More power than one person has. I mean, if I tried to do it, it’d kill me after a couple of days, much less two years.”

“Then how--” began Brendon, confused, but Jon cut him off.

“I’m getting to that. I think part of what Beckett did was draw energy from the air and the soil and the water, so that the spell wasn’t taking his power, but the land’s. Part of energy is heat, you know, hence the cold, early winters.”

Brendon frowned. Suddenly, the ridiculously hard times of the last few years made sense. “Would that make the crops fail, too?”

“Probably,” Ryan said flatly from his position a few feet above at the lip of the hole. “Not that the Bishop has any reason to care, now that he’s gotten all he can get out of the peasants in taxes and can afford to import his food from the ends of the earth. Why should he care about the lower classes when they have nothing to give him?” Jon stopped digging to give Ryan a hurt look, and Ryan shrugged, almost apologetically. “He’s a selfish man, Jon,” he said. “He may have been your friend when you were boys, but I don’t know that he’s anyone’s friend, now.”

Jon looked down, his shoulders drooping as if he had the weight of the world balanced on them. Brendon asked anxiously, “Do you need a drink?” There was wine in Dylan’s saddlebags; Brendon had found it when he found Dylan and Goliath at the Guard’s campfire.

Jon shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’d just make me sleepy.” The mere mention of the word ‘sleepy’ seemed to remind Jon how tired he was, and he yawned, which of course made Brendon yawn in turn. They exchanged weary grins, and then Jon added, “Also, I think we should all keep our heads about us if we’re gonna convince Spencer of anything.”

“Speaking of whom,” said Ryan, his head perking up. Brendon scrambled up to stand on Jon’s shoulders, ignoring his cry of protest. The black shape of Spencer approaching from the hills beyond the woods was clearly visible against the bright white snow. “You want me to lure him over here?” asked Ryan. He sighed at Brendon’s confused expression. “It can’t possibly have escaped even your notice, Urie, that even in our… _other_ bodies we know each other. It’s probably a part of the curse.” He stalked off, still looking affronted at Brendon’s stupidity.

Ah. Yeah, that made sense, thought Brendon, remembering how the wolf had greeted Ryan the first night he’d seen him. His foot slipped on Jon’s shoulder, and he had a momentary flash of panic before Jon’s steady arms were around him, carefully lowering him to the bottom of their hole.

“Thanks,” said Brendon, embarrassed at the way his dick once again responded to Jon’s touch. He backed away, immediately missing the warmth of Jon’s hands.

“Any time,” said Jon with a smile. “You want a boost out?”

Brendon considered refusing. He was pretty sure he’d have to curl up and die if Jon noticed his erection. But looking again at the steep white walls of the hole they’d dug, he had to say, “Yeah, that’d be great.”

“All right.” Jon crouched down and gestured for Brendon to come over.

“Hey,” Ryan’s voice was calling from somewhere above. “I think this is actually a river or something. I can hear ice cracking under my feet.”

“Well, don’t _stand_ on it!” yelled Brendon, his embarrassment forgotten. Jon stood up with Brendon on his shoulders, and Brendon scrambled out of the hole. “If you think it’s ice, _get off of it!_ ”

Ryan stepped back, glaring at Brendon, but the wolf was still coming, looking practically giddy at the thought of seeing Ryan again. And now Brendon could hear it, the sound of ice cracking. He squinted; under the snow, he could see the vague outline of a creek or river.

“Um,” he said to Ryan, “how heavy do you think Spencer is? As a wolf, I mean?”

“Christ, I don’t know,” said Ryan, looking worried. “As heavy as me, maybe? He’s a pretty big wolf.”

“Can you get him across any faster?” Brendon was genuinely alarmed, now. The wolf had stopped in the middle of the river, his ears perked up at the groaning noise the ice was making.

“How? With magical powers I stole from the Bishop?” Ryan stepped forward, onto the ice, his hands beckoning. “Come here, Spencer. Come on, hurry!”

“Ryan!” said Brendon, jerking at the other man’s arm. “Get off the ice!”

But it was too late. The ice cracked under Ryan’s right foot, and his leg broke through into the dark water beneath. Ryan and Brendon both shouted, and Ryan teetered for a moment, off-balance, until Brendon pulled him back onto the land.

Spencer looked frightened by this new development, and ran across towards Ryan, barking. His weight seemed to press on the widening cracks extending from the hole Ryan’s foot had made in the ice, which groaned and cracked loudly. “Oh, God,” said Ryan. The blood had completely drained from his face. He and Brendon watched, horror-stricken, as the ice gave way and Spencer fell into the water with a howl.

“Spencer!” yelled Ryan. He tried to run out onto the ice, but Brendon held him back.

“Hey, don’t you fall, too!” Shit, what to do, what to do? The rope! Brendon ran back towards the hole he and Jon had dug, where Jon was…what was Jon doing? “Jon!” he yelled. “I need the rope!”

“I got it,” said Jon tersely, handing it to Brendon. “You take this end. I’ll hold the other one and pull you back if you need it. Think Spencer’ll mind if I brace it with his sword?”

“Not as much as he’ll mind dying,” Brendon answered, running towards the river, where Ryan looked about ready to run across regardless of the risk.

Brendon tied the rope around his waist and found a spot on the river where the cracks hadn’t spread yet. He made his way carefully across to the hole where Spencer was floundering in the water.

“Hurry _up_!” yelled Ryan. He’d started crawling across the ice towards Spencer.

Brendon ignored him, instead trying to figure out how to get into the water in such a way that the wolf wouldn’t tear him to shreds with his flailing claws. He finally slipped in behind Spencer, and his entire body was suddenly racked with spasms of pain. _The cold!_ The cold was unbelievable! Brendon could think of nothing else until Spencer’s snarling dragged him back to himself, and he tried to push the struggling wolf out of the water from behind.

Spencer didn’t seem too keen on this idea, jerking his head around to snap angrily at Brendon.

“Spencer!” Ryan shouted. “Stop, stop! He’s a friend!” But the wolf was having none of it. He smacked at Brendon with a heavy paw, tearing through Brendon’s shirt into his shoulder and pushing him down under the water.

The cold made everything in his body hurt. He half wanted to keep his head under and drown, just to end the damned cold. But who knew how long that would take, and besides, having Spencer kick water into his face wasn’t his idea of a good time. Ignoring the way Spencer’s back paws scratched and cut him, he grabbed onto the wolf’s lower body. Forcing his head out of the water, he yelled, “Jon! Pull!”

Jon clearly didn’t need to be told twice, and the rope around Brendon’s waist jerked painfully tight as he was pulled towards the land. Ryan had grabbed on, too, and was pulling with all his might; Brendon could see his tendons strain against the taut rope.

 _Just a few more moments_ , thought Brendon, doing his best to ignore the pain and the numbness that was now spreading down his fingers and hands, focusing on the frozen fur under his palms, the warmth of Spencer’s struggling body. _Just hold on. Hold on._

There was a scratching noise as Spencer’s front paws found the ice. Brendon loosened his grip and _pushed_ with all the force his failing strength could manage, praying to God that the ice in front of them didn’t crack, too, before they could make it back to the land.

With a whine, Spencer scrambled onto the ice. Ryan, who was practically sobbing, crawled back to the land, Spencer sniffing and licking him all the while. Brendon couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could barely think. He felt like he’d been carved out of the ice, and soon he’d go back and freeze into place, healing the rupture in the river.

Suddenly a familiar set of warm arms had wrapped themselves around his waist and were pulling. The jagged edges of the ice scraped his stomach, but Brendon couldn’t bring himself to care as he felt himself dragged back over the river.

“Mary, mother of God, Brendon,” panted Jon into his hair. There was a strange, prickling sensation on the back of Brendon’s neck: Jon’s beard, he thought absently. Beside them, Ryan had buried his face into Spencer’s fur, and Spencer was whining in confusion.

“You’re bleeding,” said Jon incredulously. “We have to—you have to get warm. You’re not shivering. That’s not good. I have to find where you’re hurt, and--”

“If Spencer doesn’t listen to you after this,” said Ryan suddenly, his eyes red, “tell me, and I’ll kill him.” His voice was as flat as ever, but it broke somewhere in the middle with a sharp breath. Brendon wondered if he’d been crying, but he didn’t have the energy to ask. “We can’t do this. We can’t. We have to be humans again, both of us. We have to.”

Brendon thought he agreed, thought he was relieved, but before he could say anything to this effect, he found himself slipping away into cold darkness.

***

 _Saturday_

The mornings were always the worst, Spencer thought with his first rush of human consciousness. The pain of the transformation didn’t mean much to the wolf; it didn’t last, so he didn’t think about it. This, though…

He was lying next to Ryan. He’d know those long limbs, those finely-wrought features, anywhere. Already the features were blurring into the sharp angles of the hawk, but for just a moment, Ryan’s eyes met his. _Oh, God_ , thought Spencer. _Please let me touch him. Please just let me talk to him. One word, and I’ll be satisfied._

But his own face still wasn’t capable of speech, its bones shifting and churning painfully from their canine shape. Ryan smiled at him before grimacing in pain, the grimace melting into the hawk’s glare. But for a moment, Spencer had had that smile again. Ryan’s eyes were bright, as if he’d been crying, and Spencer yearned with everything in him to comfort him, to ask him what had happened the previous night and make it right. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even touch Ryan’s hand. As he reached for it, it flattened into a hawk’s wing, and, fully transformed, the hawk sprang to his feet and made a plaintive noise.

Spencer slammed a fist down on the ground in frustration, making the hawk shriek indignantly and jump away. _So close._

The more he pictured Ryan’s smile, his thin-boned hand, the more it hurt, so Spencer sat up and looked around in order to find something else to occupy his mind. A change of clothing was folded next to him, and he hurriedly put it on, cursing at the cold. Brendon and Jon were huddled around a fire, eating what looked like oatmeal. Brendon’s dark head flew up at Spencer’s movement, and he smiled brightly. “Good morning, Captain Smith!” he said cheerfully, and Spencer wondered how on earth the boy managed to be so cheery with everything that had happened over the last week.

“Morning,” he mumbled, and he made his way over to the fire. Goliath and Jon’s mule were tied up to a nearby tree. The blankets were laid out on bare patches of ground, probably cleared of snow by Brendon and Jon, and the saddlebags were piled next to Jon. Everything was present and accounted for, except…. “Where’s my sword?” he asked.

Jon’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes darted over towards Brendon. Spencer turned his attentions as well, incredulous anger rising within him. Surely, _surely_ they hadn’t lost his sword.

“Um,” said Brendon, fidgeting in a way that made Spencer want to smack him. “We—you see, we had to cross this river, sort of, last night. It was frozen, and the ice broke, and we needed it to—well, anyway, it fell in. The river, I mean.”

“ _What_?” Spencer couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You—you dropped my sword in a river?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘dropped,’” said Brendon with a nervous giggle. “More like, uh, ‘let fall?’ I dunno. I’m really, really sorry. But—see, if you look at the bright side, now you don’t have to find a jewel for it. You don’t—it’s not so much a quest, or a mission, it can just be about breaking the curse.”

“Oh my _God_.” Spencer’s temper, which had been simmering pretty much since he’d met Brendon Urie, boiled over, and he stalked over to where the thief was sitting. “You dropped my sword in the river so I’d listen to your ridiculous plan, didn’t you?” Without waiting for an answer, Spencer grabbed him by the front of his tunic, ignoring Jon’s sharp cry of protest. “ _Damn_ you! That sword was my father’s! It’s the only thing I have of, of my family, of my _honor_!”

“It’s not always about you!” cried Brendon angrily. “God, can’t you see? This isn’t _about_ revenge, it’s not _about_ you going on some noble mission, it’s about doing what’s best for you and Ryan. You do remember Ryan, don’t you?”

“Oh, fuck you,” said Spencer, shaking him. The cloth of the tunic clearly wasn’t up to such harsh treatment. It gave way, tearing open down the front. Brendon fell to the ground, the remains of his shirt doing little to conceal a torso covered in vicious-looking gashes and scratches.

 _What_? Spencer couldn’t believe what he was looking at. Was—had the Guard done that? Maybe it had been done to him in prison, but it looked too fresh, too haphazard for that. It looked—and Spencer found he couldn’t breathe—it looked as if he’d been mauled by a dog. Or a wolf.

Jon stood up and, for the first time Spencer could remember since the days when Jon had been his confessor, glared at him, his tense jaw and tightly drawn eyebrows radiating anger. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “You did that. Last night, on the river, when you fell through and Brendon saved you.” He turned his back on Spencer with a measured, deliberate movement and crouched next to Brendon. “I told you you should have let me stitch some of these up,” Spencer could hear him murmur. “You’re bleeding again.”

“It’s all right,” said Brendon, sniffling. Spencer didn’t think he’d ever hated himself so much. _Fuck_. Despite being annoying as all hell, Brendon was good in a tight spot, unexpectedly loyal, and…well, Spencer had encountered a lot of pickpockets in his time in the Guard, but he’d never met one he’d actually trust with his life before. Brendon was a _friend_. And Spencer, being the idiot he was, couldn’t recognize or repay that, either as a wolf or as a man.

“I,” he started, and then he swallowed. How could he even begin to apologize? He’d been a bastard to Brendon from the beginning. All the man wanted was to escape the gallows, and Spencer’d dragged him into a hellish situation that had put his life at risk more than once. There weren’t really words to apologize for that, but it’d be shameful not to try at least. “I’m sorry, Brendon,” he said quietly, hoping his voice didn’t sound as shaky to Brendon and Jon as it did to him. “You’ve saved my life and Ryan’s, and I’ve been incredibly ungrateful. I’m sorry I hurt you, and I—it’s all right about the sword. Maybe…maybe it’s a sign. A sign that I should’ve listened to you.” He swallowed the last bit of his resentment and nodded at Jon. “You, too.”

“Oh, Spencer!” Spencer found the last of his words smothered in Brendon’s shoulder as the pickpocket hugged him tightly. “It’s all right,” said Brendon. “After all, you’ve saved my life a couple of times, too. I mean, I’m actually losing count of the times we’ve saved each other, at this point.”

“I think that’s the point at which we give up counting and just agree to be friends,” said Spencer. He couldn’t remember the last time his heart had felt so light. Over Brendon’s shoulder, he could see Jon give him a tentative smile, and he returned it with what he knew had to be the biggest, goofiest-looking smile in the world. He didn’t even care.

“So,” he said, untangling himself from Brendon, “when’s this…day and night at the same time thing happening?”

“Tomorrow,” said Jon excitedly.

“And we have to confront the Bishop in person?” Spencer frowned. The idea hadn’t bothered him when killing the Bishop was a suicide mission, but now that there was a genuine spark of hope that the curse could be broken, he wasn’t that keen on being shot down by the Guard.

Jon nodded. “In the place where the curse was cast, which, if my sources are correct, is the main sanctuary of the cathedral.”

“Eww,” said Brendon, scowling disgustedly. “He cast a curse in the holiest part of the church?”

Jon shrugged, his own face more solemn. “It’s also the most powerful. He probably did it at night, so no one would bother him.”

“Well, at least we’ll know where to find him,” Spencer mused aloud. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, so he’ll be in the sanctuary giving Mass. But I think if we’re going to make it in there alive, we’re going to need some help.”

“What kind of help?” asked Brendon.

“Well, for starters, I’m going to be turning into a wolf at some point, so someone’s going to need to get a cage for me or something so I don’t waste time by running off and hunting rabbits. It’d also help if we had more swordsmen to help with the Guard, and someone to stand a lookout at the city gate.”

“I don’t know how much help I’ll be there,” said Jon, making a face. “Ever since I got excommunicated, most of my friends in the Church have been…less than friendly.”

Jon had been excommunicated? This was news to Spencer, and he felt a twinge of guilt for giving Jon such a hard time before. But the problem remained; they needed help, and they all seemed to be short on friends. Unless…

“Hey,” said Brendon. “I’ve got a couple of ideas. But we’re gonna have to hurry.”

***

“So, let me see if I have this right,” said Gerard, peering suspiciously at Brendon, Jon, and Spencer over the Ways’ table. “You’re planning to confront the Bishop, which will break this curse he’s put on Captain Smith and, at the same time, will show the people of Aquila that he’s a warlock.”

“As if he weren’t bad enough,” muttered Mikey, scratching at his bandaged arm. The Ways’ neighbor, a fidgety little man they introduced as Frank, cocked his head curiously.

“So?” he asked, with a respectful dip of his head towards Spencer. “I mean, if the people didn’t rebel when he charged us those godawful taxes, or when he started arresting and torturing and excommunicating people, why would they do anything now? I mean, most people I know already think he sold his soul to the Devil, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to fight him or anything.”

“They might not even have to do anything,” Jon broke in. “I’m not exactly sure how this works, but I know that Bill—the Bishop, that is, must have put a lot of himself into this curse. When it’s broken…I don’t know, he might die, or the spell might reflect back onto him. It’s hard to say, with magic.”

“Yeah, but what if none of that happens?” asked Gerard, looking solemn. “What if, at the end of it all, Captain Smith’s curse is broken but the Bishop’s just as powerful as ever?”

“Then I’ll kill him,” Spencer said bluntly.

Mikey and Frank looked satisfied by this, but Gerard frowned thoughtfully and said, “What happens then? Who takes over for him? Who takes charge of the Guard and the taxes and whatnot?”

Spencer could feel his eyebrows rise in surprise. It was a good question, one he’d been too wrapped up in thoughts of vengeance to properly consider. He looked at Gerard with newfound respect. It was amazing, the qualities that manifested themselves in the most unexpected people. He reminded himself to pay a hell of a lot more attention to the peasants on his estate if he ever made it back to the Smith lands.

“We’ll have to send for a new Bishop,” said Jon. “I think someone ought to go to Appia and tell the Archbishop about Beckett.”

“I could do that,” Mikey said. “You wouldn’t want me to tell him about Captain Smith killing him, right? You’d just want him to know about the witchcraft and the taxes and how the magic’s ruining the land.”

“Exactly,” said Jon, nodding. “And I’m hoping something will happen when the curse breaks, so we’ll have a churchfull of witnesses that the Bishop really was working magic. You know how to get to Appia?”

Mikey shrugged with his good shoulder. “I guess I can find it.”

Gerard and Frank looked at him dubiously. “Why don’t you go talk to Brian and see if he’ll go with you?” Gerard suggested. Brian, they’d learned earlier, was another neighbor whose lands had been ravaged by the Guard.

“All right,” Mikey said evenly. Spencer could only just see the beginnings of an exasperated twist of his mouth, and he hid a smile himself.

“What else would you want of us?” asked Gerard, turning his attentions back towards Spencer, Jon, and Brendon.

Brendon, who’d been shockingly quiet, broke in, saying, “A wagon. Preferably with some kind of cover, but any’ll do. Also, if you had some kind of cage or pen or something, we could use that. And we need lookouts once we get past the gates, to tell us if the guards are sending reinforcements.”

Gerard blinked. After exchanging an unreadable look with Frank, he said, “How big a cage do you need?”

“Big enough for a wolf,” said Spencer.

Mikey shuddered, and Spencer had a disturbing flash of memory that involved him gnawing on Mikey’s arm.

“I suppose my rabbit trap’s too small, then,” said Gerard, frowning.

“Hey,” said Frank, “I know time’s of the essence, but we could always make a cage. I don’t think it’d be that hard, and we could always use what’s left of my shed for lumber.”

“What do you think, Spencer?” asked Brendon, and Spencer felt a strange sort of happiness at being called by his name instead of “Captain Smith.” “You think we have enough time to make a cage?”

Spencer looked at the sky. It was still only midday. “We have time,” he said. “But we’re still going to need some more help.”

Brendon shrugged helplessly. Mikey raised his eyebrows, and Gerard said, “Well, there used to be a lot more people in this area, before the Guard started coming in. Brian’s going to be helping Mikey. There’s always Worm--”

Frank shook his head. “Worm got arrested.”

Spencer scarcely noticed. “I have an idea,” he said. If anyone had told him three weeks earlier how excited he’d be to have a priest, a pickpocket, and three peasant farmers look to him for a plan, he’d have laughed. Bitterly. But the truth of the matter was, Spencer was starting to feel like a commander again, and it was like recognizing a friend he hadn’t realized he’d lost.

***

“Hey,” said Brendon. “I know this place. I almost got executed here.”

Jon gave him an alarmed look, but Spencer just smiled calmly, which made Brendon a little nervous. The man had probably executed a thief or two himself, back in the day.

Sure enough, it was the very inn where the Guard had cornered him and Spencer had rescued him for the first time. He remembered the long-haired innkeeper who came out to watch their approach. He didn’t know the man with wild, curly brown hair standing next to the innkeeper, but the stranger seemed to know Spencer, and greeted him with a hearty, “Captain Smith! We were wondering where you’d gotten to!”

“Meeting some old friends, making some new ones,” said Spencer airily. “Nothing too exciting, Master Trohman.”

“Just stabbing former soldiers,” the innkeeper said in a dry tone, not looking at all welcoming. “Nothing too interesting.”

Trohman looked from the innkeeper to Spencer, shocked. “You were the one who stabbed Patrick? Why?”

Spencer scowled, staring down at his saddle. If Brendon didn’t know better, he’d say that Spencer was embarrassed or ashamed. “It was an accident,” he said. “Saporta pushed him onto my sword.”

“Yeah,” said the innkeeper. “That’s what he said, too.” He rolled his eyes. “Last time I get involved in a Guard conflict, believe me.”

“But he’s alive, then?” Spencer asked, his voice intense, and Brendon wondered just who the hell Patrick was.

“Yeah,” said Trohman. “I mean, he’s felt better, but he’s still alive and kicking in the back room. Why? Did you want to talk to him?”

“Hey,” said Frank, who was sitting with Brendon and Gerard on the wagon. “Have we come here for supplies, or what?”

Spencer visibly swallowed his emotions (though Brendon could still see his eyes shining with what looked suspiciously like tears) and gestured towards the two men who had exited the inn. “Friends, allow me to introduce Joe Trohman, a wine merchant from this area, and….”

“Andy Hurley,” said the innkeeper.

Spencer nodded graciously. “Master Hurley, Master Trohman, this is Gerard Way, Frank Iero, and Father Jon Walker. I believe you might remember Brendon Urie, Master Hurley.”

The innkeeper—Andy—nodded. “You’re the kid who wanted the most expensive drink in the place, right?”

Brendon could feel himself reddening. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and it sounded foolish when said like that. “That was me, yes.”

Andy nodded again, smiling, but it was more friendly than mocking, and Brendon let himself relax. “You want to come in?” asked Andy. “You can leave your wagon and mounts in our stables if you like. No one’ll take them.”

“Thanks,” said Frank, jumping down. Gerard stiffly stepped down after him; like Brendon, he’d taken a nap in the back of the wagon while they traveled, but unlike Brendon, he was clearly unused to catching sleep in odd places. Frank and Gerard stayed back to stable the mounts and the wagon—“Got to wake this old man up,” said Frank with a smirk at Gerard—while the rest of them followed Andy into a small back room in the inn, where Joe was sitting by the bedside of a man Brendon recognized from the group of Guard who’d tried to arrest and execute Brendon. He took an involuntary step back, his instincts for flight at their most alert, but stopped when he noticed another figure sitting at the foot of the bed.

“Pete? Pete Wentz?” Pete was a pickpocket from the city who’d taught Brendon his trade. Seeing him here was like—like—well, like seeing a captain of the Guard who rescued thieves, or a priest who spent his time researching magic to help a couple of outlaws.

Pete favored him with a toothy grin. “If it isn’t little Brendon Urie! I see you’ve managed to keep yourself alive thus far.”

Brendon couldn’t muster the presence of mind to respond to this, and instead he pointed to the man in the bed and said, “You do know he’s in the Guard, right?”

“ _Was_ in the Guard,” said the man, attempting to pull himself up to a seated position before Pete pushed him back down.

“Stitches, Stump!” said Pete. Turning back to Brendon, he said, “Oh, yeah, I know. But being in the Guard’s how he almost got himself killed, so now I’ve sort of adopted him. Taken him under my wing, if you will, to help him escape from the clutches of a life of law enforcement.” He grinned at the guard and covered him with a blanket to his chin.

“He has not,” said the guard irritably, but he let Pete tuck the blankets around him with no more resistance than a half-hearted sigh.

“How do you know Andy?” asked Brendon, confused. Whenever he’d seen Pete in the city, he was always staying in the same kind of lousy holes in the wall that Brendon was living in; he’d certainly never _mentioned_ being friends with a prosperous, respectable business-owner.

Pete laughed. “Oh, Andy and I go way back. Used to run in the same kinds of circles, you know?” Pete had always been kind to Brendon, but he had a reputation in the shadier neighborhoods of Aquila that stopped Brendon from asking just _what_ kinds of circles he and Andy had run in. He figured he probably didn’t want to know.

The guard gave Pete a curious little frown; evidently he _did_ want to know. When he saw Spencer walk in, though, he jerked up again, knocking his covers aside and making Pete shake his head and cluck in disapproval. “Captain Smith!”

Spencer shrugged, looking very young. “You can probably just call me Spencer, Patrick, since neither of us is in the Guard anymore.” Pushing past Brendon to kneel at the guard’s—Patrick’s—bedside, he said, “I just--I wanted to apologize for….” He swallowed loudly. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t mean to, but….”

“But nothing!” Patrick waved a hand in dismissal. “You weren’t the one who pushed me onto your sword. In fact, I should thank you, because the whole incident made it abundantly clear to me that being in the Guard under Saporta is pretty much the same as being in a gang of mercenary barbarians, and I’m better off without them.”

Brendon sent a questioning look towards Jon, who shrugged. Ryan screeched from his position on a clothes-hook in the corner.

“Oh,” said Patrick, sad and wondering. “Spencer, is that….”

“Ryan,” said Spencer, his voice tightening a bit.

“Damn. I’m sorry.”

Brendon couldn’t stand the sadness that seemed to loom over both Spencer and Patrick, so without pausing to think about what Spencer’s plan in coming here might be and whether or not he was ruining it, he said, “We found a way to break the curse. Well, I mean, Jon did, but now we’re gonna do it.”

Everyone turned to look at Brendon. Spencer looked vaguely exasperated, but Joe, Pete, Andy and Patrick looked curious.

“No joke?” Joe asked. “What do you have to do?” Noticing Spencer’s sidelong look at Andy, he said, “Don’t worry about Andy, Captain.”

“I have a lot of respect for your work in the Guard,” Andy said casually. “Criminals got caught, punishments fit the crime. Not like now. I really can’t imagine any circumstances in which I’d give you up to the Bishop.”

Spencer blinked. “Um. Thank you.”

“That’s actually why we came here,” Jon broke in. “Um. Not, uh, giving Spencer to the Bishop. Obviously.” Brendon wondered when he’d gotten to know Jon so well he recognized when the other man was yearning for a drink. “But to get some help. To break the curse, we have to get back into Aquila. And, well, I don’t know how well any of us except maybe me can get in without being recognized by the Guard and arrested.”

“Same goes for me, fellow,” Pete said matter-of-factly. “That’s why I’m intruding on Andy’s lovely abode now—I only just escaped with my skin. City Guard’s in no mood to deal with pickpockets just now.”

“I could probably get in,” Patrick mused. “Depends on how organized Saporta was, and whether he made a formal announcement to the rest of the Guard about—um. I guess he’d call it my ‘betrayal.’ I don’t know how much good I can do once I’m there, though. Clearly I’m not going to be swordfighting for a while.”

“You’re not going to be getting out of bed for a while if I have anything to say about it,” said Pete, giving Patrick a stern look. Brendon thought they should form a society of sorts: The Society of Thieves Who Keep the Guards in Their Lives from Doing Stupid Things. It’d be a very small society.

Joe frowned, confused. “Well, wait,” he said. “Swordfighting? Just what are we doing in Aquila?”

“Overthrowing the Bishop,” said Spencer gravely.

Andy raised his eyebrows. “Count me in,” he said.

 

 _Saturday night_

Ryan _knew_ , of course, how he’d ended up in a wagon full of sweaty, dirty, commoners. He just wondered how he’d given in so quickly. Of course, at this point, he, too, was sweaty and dirty and dressed in an ill-fitting set of Andy Hurley’s clothes. “For a disguise,” Brendon had explained. “Nobody’ll recognize you with dirt on your face and patched clothes.” He was right, of course; the Ryan Ross who’d moved to Aquila some three years ago wouldn’t have been caught dead in this outfit. Even now, it made his skin crawl. But, he supposed, it was a necessary evil.

Spencer growled from his slapdash cage, and Ryan ignored the strange looks from Frank and Joe to reach his hand in and run it reassuringly along Spencer’s back. Even as a wolf, Spencer’s nervous show of irritation was clearly discernable from real anger. To Ryan, anyway. Patrick squirmed in the front seat and turned around to look at the back of the wagon.

“So,” he said tensely. “You all know what to do if the guards remember that Saporta stabbed me, right? You all have your weapons?”

“Relax,” said Frank. “You’ve told us what to do. A lot.” Gerard glared at Patrick suspiciously, moving his own hand towards the ax hanging at his belt. Ryan got the distinct impression that, assurances from Spencer aside, he wasn’t any too keen about working with a guard.

Patrick sighed. “I know. But there are so many things that could go wrong here, and I’m just--”

“We know.” Joe put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder and gave him an encouraging smile. Ryan wished he knew these people, any of them. It was a sad day when he found himself plotting to overthrow a city government, and the compatriots he knew best were a former underling of Spencer’s and their loose-tongued former priest. Ryan felt a disturbing pang of nostalgia for Brendon Urie’s company. He and the other thief, Wentz, had split off long before they reached the city.

“Hey.” Jon’s voice came out harsh and hoarse, at odds with the cheerful expression of greeting he’d adopted. “Hush. We’re almost there.”

The motley group fell silent as they rattled towards the gates, a beacon of dim torchlight that cast shadows over the surrounding countryside. The guards straightened up at their approach, and one held out a hand gesturing for them to stop.

“Evening,” said Jon, and Ryan was amazed at the casual jovialty in his tone. He’d never have guessed that Jon was so good a liar.

“Evening,” said the young guard. “Who are all these men, and what’s your business in the city?”

“Oh,” said Jon with a nod, “these are some of the men of my parish, up north aways. Nobody wanted to ride alone with _that_ \--” He jerked his head in Spencer’s direction. “So Sergeant Stump here suggested we all come along. We figured six men ought to be able to handle one wolf, right?”

“It’s a gift for the Bishop,” Patrick interjected, and to Ryan’s surprise, the guard shuddered.

“Christ Jesus,” he said, sounding more unhappy than shocked or doubtful, “not another one.”

Jon raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “What His Grace wants, His Grace gets.”

“You can say that again,” muttered the other guard. “All right. Sergeant Stump, are you escorting them to the church?” Patrick nodded. “Well, I suppose you can all go in, then. But please, keep the animal under control. We’ve had just about enough of the Bishop’s damned wolves.”

“Of course,” said Patrick solemnly. Then, as they rolled away, “What the _hell_?”

“A friend of mine who works up in the church says the Bishop’s started collecting wolfskins,” said Joe. “Big black ones, like Spencer. There’s a strange man, a hunter--”

“We know him,” said Jon flatly. Ryan felt his blood freeze at the remembrance of _that man_ and his traps, and the dead wolf he’d thrown in front of Ryan. He didn’t know what had become of him and Saporta in the woods, but he hoped with vicious fervor that their wounds had become infected and they’d died in the middle of nowhere, cold and in pain.

The wagon was silent. Finally, Gerard muttered, “Lord help us, this is some strange and unnatural shit.” Frank giggled, and Ryan felt the chill of the memory fade into the earthly cold of the night.

“I hope Brendon and Pete are all right,” said Jon in a low voice. “Those sewers have got to be freezing at night.”

Ryan thought of Pete’s cockiness with its undercurrent of reassurance, Brendon’s cheerful determination. “They’ll be fine,” he said, and inexplicably enough, he meant it.

***

“Christ Almighty!” sputtered Pete, gasping for breath and shaking water out of his hair. “I think I’d rather be hanged than do this again!”

Brendon was exhausted and cold and really didn’t want to think about what he was standing in. “Nobody asked you to come along,” he said wearily to Pete. “You could have stayed at Andy’s.”

“While all of you were out being heroic?” Pete snorted. “Not on your life, Urie.”

“Keep your voice down. The sound echoes down here, and I don’t know where all of these vents lead.” Brendon strained his ears for anything, anything at all, that would tell him where the cathedral was. It was too early yet for much light, and the dank darkness of the sewers hung over him like a funeral shroud.

“Ugh,” he said, shuddering. “Is the Bishop just determined to make my life miserable? Why, _why_ lock the doors to the damn church during Mass?”

“’Cause he’s paranoid,” said Pete matter-of-factly. “The bastard knows how much the people hate him, so he keeps his poor little congregation in and everyone else out and scares them all with his Guard, just in case someone decides to do God a favor and slit his throat during the Sunday services.” He peered into the dark tunnel ahead. “So, what, do we just keep walking until you remember which drain shaft leads to the cathedral?”

“Unless you’ve got a better plan.” They trudged along in the slimy black waters in mostly unbroken silence. Brendon found that it wasn’t so bad, this second time around; it was still cold and gross, but it wasn’t quite as frightening to walk along with Pete by his side. The sound of water flowing to the river outside gradually faded, drowned in the ever-present noise of waste splashing into the sewers. A gray, dim sort of light began to reveal the contours of the tunnel walls, and Brendon felt a twinge of recognition at the sight of a small hole high up in the wall, the smell issuing from it rather stronger and more unpleasant than from the surrounding drains.

“Hey,” he said, pointing. “I think that’s the drain that comes from the prison. We’ve actually gone a little too far—the cathedral vent was back that way.”

Pete rubbed his hands together, either in excitement or an attempt to warm himself. “Excellent,” he said. “Got your lock picks ready?”

“We’ve got to get up there, first,” Brendon pointed out. But he couldn’t stop the thrill of excitement he felt, and he bounced up and down on his heels for a moment, feeling for the thin blade Pete had given him for prying open the grates and working at the cathedral doors’ lock. This was it—his chance to help Spencer and Ryan, to help everyone. _Not in spite of who you are, but because of it._ He smiled widely at Pete and started walking back towards the cathedral’s drain, his step lighter and quicker than it had been a few moments ago.

 

 _Sunday_

“Well,” said Spencer, examining his rag-tag band of men, “this is it. If anyone wants to back out, now’s the time.”

Frank made a rude noise, and Andy gave Spencer a cool, almost disdainful look. Gerard and Joe regarded him steadily, neither looking as if they had any doubts at all. Spencer felt a warm sense of camaraderie bubble up in his heart and he smiled. “Thank you.” He turned his smile on Jon and Patrick, who were sitting in the wagon with solemn faces, and said, “All of you. And thanks for lending me your sword, Patrick.”

Patrick nodded, looking pale. The wagon ride clearly hadn’t been any too easy on his recovering body, but his voice was strong enough as he shrugged and said, “Wasn’t like I was going to be using it today, right?”

Spencer returned the nod and fingered the hilt at his belt. It wasn’t his broadsword, not even close, but it was a serviceable blade and Patrick clearly kept it in good condition.

Jon squinted at the sky and let out a sigh. “Maybe two hours until the eclipse. Maybe a little more. Hard to tell with all these clouds.”

“Is that gonna ruin the curse-breaking?” Joe asked with a frown. “If the sun’s covered in clouds, I mean.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” said Jon. Spencer didn’t even let himself think about what it would mean if he were wrong.

“All right,” he said. “If Brendon and Pete have done their job, the doors should be unlocked now. But there’ll still be guards, inside and out. After we dispatch the ones standing outside, Gerard and Frank, you two stand by the door and alert us if reinforcements come. Andy and Joe, you and I will deal with the Guard inside the cathedral.” They all nodded, and Spencer switched his attention to Jon and Patrick. “You two watch Ryan,” he said. “If the church bells haven’t rung when the—the eclipse happens, Jon, you bring him into the church. If they have, that means we couldn’t get in and the service went fine. And that I’m dead, because there’s no way on Earth that I’m giving up as long as I have breath in my body.”

“What do we do then?” asked Patrick bleakly.

Spencer allowed himself to despair, just for a moment, at the thought. If they failed, if they all squandered this last chance to make things right…he shrugged. “If Ryan died, I wouldn’t want to live either.” Everything in him protested at the thought, but God only knew what would happen if one of them died, still bound by the Bishop’s magic. Death, he thought, would probably be preferable to the toll the curse would exact.

“Wait.” Jon narrowed his eyes. “You mean….”

“No life at all is better than half a life.” Jon looked like he wanted to argue with that, but he bit his tongue. Spencer was grateful; he didn’t want a resurgence of his old bitterness towards Jon, and he didn’t want to leave him and Patrick with angry words.

“Good luck, then,” said Patrick, giving Spencer a Guard salute with a tight smile. Jon nodded grimly.

Ryan screeched and hopped down from the wagon to land on Spencer’s shoulder, rapping his head sharply with his beak. Spencer blinked tears from his eyes and scratched around Ryan’s neck feathers. “Stay with Jon and Patrick,” he said quietly. “I know you want to fight, but this…you can’t die, yet. Not now. Not when we’re so close.” _God willing, neither of us will have to die at all today._

Ryan gave him a sharp glare, as if to say, “I think you’re an idiot.” With a harsh, disdainful noise, he fluttered away to perch between Jon and Patrick on the wagon seat. Spencer didn’t trust himself to speak. He gestured to the other four men to follow him and started down the narrow roads that led to the cathedral.

“Hey,” said Joe in a harsh whisper that was almost covered by the noises of their boots scrabbling on the cobblestones. “What if Pete and Brendon couldn’t open the door? Or if they got scared and ran off?”

Andy raised his eyebrows. “I’ve known Pete a long time,” he said coolly, “and as far as I know, he never shies away from doing something just because it’s dangerous. Or, for that matter, stupid. He’ll do it.”

For his part, Spencer couldn’t believe that Brendon, who’d seen more battle at this point than many novice guards, would turn tail and run. There was no turning back now, for any of them; if the door was still locked, he’d kill the guards and break down the door, with or without help from his new comrades.

The spires of the cathedral rose in his view, and he slowed his pace. Caution.

“Hey,” said Frank. “That’s the cathedral, right?”

“Yes,” Spencer said curtly. He could see the doors, now, across the square from where he and the others paused behind the corner of the bakery. He vaguely recognized the men standing guard; Chris Fallers and Darren Wilson had both been new recruits when Spencer was captain. They must have done something right over the years, because they both had sergeants’ uniforms. Spencer really didn’t want to have to kill them.

“All right,” he said. “We’re going in. Defend yourselves as best you can when you need to, but—if you could avoid killing them….”

Frank and Gerard exchanged sullen expressions, but Andy nodded serenely. “We get it,” he said. “You know them. We’ll try not to kill any friends of yours.”

Spencer wondered, not for the first time, just what the hell Andy had done for a living before opening his inn, but now wasn’t the time to worry about it. Taking a deep breath, he started walking.

He knew the second that Darren and Chris recognized him. They straightened up, their faces full of surprised recognition, and drew their swords partway out of their sheathes. Spencer raised a hand in greeting. “Good morning. Fallers. Wilson.” He nodded at both of them. “Congratulations on your promotions,” he added, trying out a smile.

Darren smiled tentatively back. Chris, on the other hand, seemed even more nervous. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said. “We’re—nobody goes into the cathedral once Mass has started. And the Bishop wants us to arrest you.”

“Well, are you going to arrest us or stand guard?” asked Gerard tartly. “You can’t do both at the same time.”

Chris and Darren gave each other confused, anxious looks, and then turned back to Spencer. Darren wiped a hand on his tunic and said, “Captain Smith, we have our orders.”

“I know.” Spencer couldn’t even find it within himself to be irritated at them. God knew they were in a difficult position. “I don’t mean to make difficulties for you. But as a man who was your captain once, and who with any luck will be again, I’ll ask you to let me pass.” He gestured to his makeshift band of warriors. “There are five of us to your two, but I’d just as soon nobody came to harm this morning.”

“There are more of us inside,” said Chris. At first Spencer thought this was a threat, something to keep them at bay. But then Chris added, “Also, the door’s locked” and stepped off to one side, and Spencer realized that he was moving to let them pass.

Darren bit his lower lip, met Spencer’s eyes for a brief, solemn moment, and then followed Chris’s lead. _Thank God_ , thought Spencer before turning to his companions. “All right. Frank and Gerard, stay out here and alert us if any reinforcements come.”

“Aren’t you going to need help in there?” asked Frank. “I mean, if there are a lot more Guard in there, another couple of men might be useful.”

“There are about two dozen inside, or maybe a little more,” piped up Darren. He shrugged. “Captain Saporta, too. I guess they knew you were coming.”

Frank turned to Spencer as if to say, _See?_ But Spencer still didn’t think Darren and Chris would necessarily decide to help him if forced to choose between their former Captain and their current brothers-in-arms, and he didn’t think either Gerard or Frank had enough weapons training that he was comfortable leaving one of them alone with two sergeants of the Guard. “If we need backup,” he said, in commanding a tone as he could muster, “we’ll call you. Otherwise, stay here and make sure nobody else gets in.”

“Except for, like, Brendon or Patrick or Pete or Jon, right?” asked Frank, and Gerard elbowed him in the ribs.

“Don’t worry. We’ll keep a lookout for more Guard.” He gripped his ax in his hands and gave Spencer a tight smile. “Try not to get yourselves killed. I’m kind of hoping to get a new Bishop out of all this.”

Spencer nodded. Joe sighed resignedly. “Well,” he said, “Guess it’s time to see if Pete and Brendon held up their end of this plan.” He gestured towards the door. “Shall we?”

“Let’s,” said Andy, barrelling into the door with no further ado.

“Shit!” shrieked Joe. “A little warning next time, huh?!”

But there wasn’t time to say any more than that. Pete and Brendon had clearly known what they were doing; the door opened onto a church full of startled parishoners. And about thirty armed and irritated-looking guards.

Spencer pulled out his sword and leapt into the fray.

***

“Hey,” said Brendon, scrambling onto the back of the wagon and scraping his knees in the process. “Not long now, huh?”

Patrick and Jon jerked around, surprised, and Pete laughed. “Good thing Urie and I aren’t guards, right?” he said. “Oh, you two should see the looks on your faces.”

“Very funny,” said Patrick with a frown. “As if we weren’t nervous enough already without your—your skulking around!”

Jon put a calming hand on Patrick’s shoulder and asked, “So, did you two get the doors unlocked?”

“Simple as anything,” said Pete. “I mean, we got a few funny looks for smelling as bad as we did, but there are a lot of shadowy corners in that cathedral to hide in. And it’s not like the locks on the doors are anything special. They’re big, you know, but not complicated. For show, mostly.”

“Spencer and the others made it in all right,” Brendon added. “But there were a lot of guards in there, and we didn’t have much by way of weapons, so we got out of there.”

“Good.” Jon nodded and gave Brendon a tired little half-smile. “I’m glad.” Brendon couldn’t help but smile back. The four of them sat for a minute in exhausted silence while Ryan made a disgruntled noise and combed through his feathers with his beak. The sky was clearing up, Brendon thought, and it was going to be a cold, clear morning. He ached from head to toe, and he yearned to stay here, leaning up against Jon’s warm body, until the damn eclipse happened. But…

“I should go see if they need help in the cathedral,” he said, forcing himself to stand up again. “I mean, I’m not much of a fighter, but I can do some stuff.”

“Well, you got Saporta in the face, right?” Patrick gave him a wry smile from under the brim of his helmet, and then winced in pain, curling into himself slightly. “Jesus. I’m sure as hell not going to be much help.”

“Your stitches coming out?” asked Pete, jumping into the front seat and peering concernedly at Patrick, who shook his head.

“No, Pete, but thanks for checking.” He turned to Brendon. “How many men are they facing in there?”

Too many. “Maybe thirty?” He hadn’t had a chance to sit down and count.

Patrick groaned, and Jon bit nervously at his lower lip. “I can’t fight worth shit,” he said, “but I know something we could do. Patrick, you think you could stay with Ryan and the wagon by yourself until the eclipse?”

“I guess,” said Patrick with a shrug. “I’ve still got some tricks up my sleeve. What are you thinking of?”

Jon jerked a thumb at the horses who were pulling the wagons. “I know these aren’t battle horses or anything, but if we were to, say, ride them into the middle of the cathedral, they’d probably cause a pretty big distraction.”

“Andy’ll kill you if anything happens to the horses,” Pete said casually, but Brendon could tell he was interested. Truth be told, Brendon was a little excited by the idea of riding into the cathedral like a knight coming to the rescue.

“What else would we do?” he asked.

“Well,” said Jon, “I’m sure Spencer wouldn’t mind having this back.” And he pulled a long object, wrapped in swathes of dark cloth, from under the wagon’s seat.

 _Spencer’s sword?_ Brendon was fairly sure he’d hidden that in Andy’s inn, to be safely returned to Spencer after there was no risk of him doing something stupid and heroic. But—here it was, jewels and everything. How had Jon…?

“I knew the sword didn’t really fall through the ice,” said Jon. “I was the one using it to brace myself, remember? And after totally missing your amazing pickpocketing skills that first time, I was determined to see you in action this time.” He handed the sword to Brendon with a grin. “I have to hand it to you, I’m really amazed you managed to fit something that big under your tunic and still ride a horse.”

Well, it hadn’t been easy. Brendon felt a warm glow of pride in his chest, along with something a little warmer caused by Jon’s grin, but before he could say anything, Pete was pointing into the sky. “What the hell is that?” he said, his eyes wide. “Is that the, the thing? The eclipse thing?”

Jon’s head shot up. “Shit,” he murmured to himself. “I could’ve sworn it’d be an hour later. God Almighty, we have to get to the cathedral before the sun is totally covered.” As if understanding the urgency in Jon’s voice, Ryan hopped onto Brendon’s shoulder and shrieked impatiently.

“Well?” Patrick stood up, taking a deep breath and ignoring Pete’s reproachful look. “I swear to God, if you three don’t get these horses detached in the next couple of seconds, I’m jumping down and doing it myself.” Ryan pecked Brendon’s head, apparently in agreement.

“Sit back down, Stump,” said Pete as he hopped down and began untangling the horses’ harnesses. “We’ll do it.”

 _We have to,_ thought Brendon as he tried to get his hands to stop shaking long enough to put the sword in his belt.

***

For Spencer, life had been boiled down to a few essentials: keep moving, keep breathing, counter the blows as they come, check on the others, turn to meet the next opponent. He had scarcely enough presence of mind to even notice Beckett’s presence in the room, much less get angry about it.

Frank and Gerard had long since been called into help, and both were setting upon the Guard with relish. They were certainly holding their own—more so than Spencer had expected—but neither was used to prolonged combat, and weariness and injuries were starting to take their toll. Joe was almost inhumanly fast, and fought like a madman, but he had no sense of tactics, and he was using up energy he couldn’t afford to waste on missed blows. Andy, who’d clearly studied hand-to-hand combat before, was holding up the best, but he’d lost the short sword he’d been using and was now relying on a stolen Guard shield for both protection and attack.

Between the five of them, they’d taken out about half their attackers, but they couldn’t keep it up much longer. _Lord,_ thought Spencer, _just let us keep them off until the eclipse._

It seemed, however, that that wouldn’t be an option.

A tall figure strode out from the chambers behind the pulpit, conferred for a moment with the Bishop, and then swaggered forward confidently to the knot of fighting where Spencer was entangled. _Saporta._

“Well, well, well!” cried Saporta with a smirk. “I was wondering when we’d see you. We had your boy earlier.” His sneer put a nasty twist on the word _boy_ that made Spencer’s blood boil. “Urie and that priest, too. Honest to God, I thought you were going to charge us, all chivalrous, again. I guess there’s only so much chivalry a wolf’s capable of, though. Right?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Spencer said through gritted teeth. He stifled the little voice within telling him he _should_ have been protecting Ryan rather than running off after that deer, and focused his anger on Saporta.

Somewhere behind him, Spencer heard Frank’s cry of inarticulate rage, and Spencer guessed that Saporta’d been the one in charge of burning Frank’s farm. Andy maneuvered his way closer to Spencer and shouted, “Captain Smith! You need a hand?”

“I’m fine,” Spencer spat out. “Help Frank.” The man was going to get himself killed if he didn’t forget about Saporta and focus on the men attacking him. Spencer, meanwhile, seemed suddenly to have fewer opponents to worry about. Saporta gave him a vicious grin, and the guards Spencer had been fighting dispersed to close in around Joe and Gerard.

Spencer couldn’t worry about them, though, because Saporta was swinging his huge broadsword with enough force to cut him in half. He ducked and moved in closer, hoping to sneak under Saporta’s defenses to stab him, but Saporta was ready, countering his thrust with enough force to push him back a little.

“Didn’t think I’d be in such good shape, huh?” said Saporta, his smile taking on a feral edge. “Thought your little pickpocket could take me down that easily?”

“No, no,” Spencer said. “I told Brendon to leave you for me. It would have been beneath him to get _your_ filthy blood on his hands.”

Saporta snarled angrily, and a series of fierce blows rained down on Spencer. He parried them as best he could, but Saporta’s height gave him far more reach than Spencer, and clearly being a captain of the Guard, no matter how corrupt, was better weapons training than riding the wilds with only a hawk for company.

But God, how he wanted Saporta dead. Saporta was responsible for the stitches in Patrick’s gut, the lump on Jon’s head, the wounds that were still visible on Ryan’s face even in hawk form. Saporta had made a mockery of everything the Bishop’s Guard had once stood for, transformed it from a force for justice into a gang of ruthless thugs, who had turned on the people they were supposed to protect. He needed to die.

Spencer’s anger gave him an edge, and he matched Saporta blow for blow. He was completely engrossed in the fight, now. He heard shouting coming from somewhere nearby, but it was faint in his mind and it took a moment before he understood that it was coming from Gerard and aimed at him. “Fuck Saporta!” Gerard was yelling. “Fuck him! The eclipse is happening! Get to the fucking Bishop!”

Spencer jerked his head around to the door for a split second to see that yes, indeed, the moon was passing in front of the sun, just as Jon had predicted. He scarcely had the time to form a wry, wordless mental apology to Jon before Patrick’s sword vibrated painfully in his hand and went flying loudly into the stone wall. Saporta had taken advantage of his distraction to knock it away and render Spencer defenseless.

 _Oh, Christ. Ryan._ Saporta’s sword was at his throat, now, and Spencer scrambled away, but Saporta was faster, less tired, and pointed the sword at him once again with a cruel smile. “Who’s the captain now?” asked Saporta smugly.

“ _Kill_ him!” shrieked Beckett from the pulpit, and Spencer remembered with a jolt what he was doing in this damned cathedral in the first place. Not that he’d get a chance to do it now, because Beckett yelled again, “The devil take you, Gabe! Don’t banter with him, kill him!”

“With pleasure,” said Saporta. He swung his blade, and Spencer prepared himself to dodge as best he could. But then a sound like thunder shook the church, and the blow went wildly astray as Saporta gazed in bewildered disgust at something behind Spencer.

“Hey, Spencer!”

Now Spencer turned to look, only to see Brendon Urie’s grinning face as he charged into the church on the back of one of Andy’s carthorses. Pete and Jon were right behind him on the other horse, Pete brandishing a dagger with a rather terrifying grin and Jon guiding the horse with a vaguely nauseated look on his face.

“You look like you could use a family heirloom right about now, Spencer Smith!” shouted Brendon, and he galloped towards Spencer and Saporta, dropping something as he passed Spencer. It almost looked like—

It couldn’t be. Brendon had said that the broadsword was lost. Spencer’d resigned itself to its loss, comforting himself with the thought that, whether or not this plan to restore his and Ryan’s humanity worked, the sword wouldn’t matter anymore. But here it was, plain as day, and Spencer couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen so welcome a sight.

He picked it up, feeling as if he’d regained a lost limb. It felt perfect in his hands, and as he easily parried Saporta’s blows and drove Saporta into a corner, it was more like a perfectly choreographed dance than a real struggle.

He didn’t have the time to watch as Brendon, Pete, and Jon spread chaos through the knots of combat; he didn’t have time to look at the crowds of parishoners fleeing through the now wide-open doors. He certainly didn’t have time for Gabriel Fucking Saporta. With one strong blow from the broadsword, Saporta’s own sword went spinning off into the empty pews.

“Surrender now, or you’re dead,” said Spencer, no longer caring whether or not he killed Saporta.

Saporta panted, glaring at him with hate-filled eyes. “Fuck you!” he spat out, and grabbed a dagger from his belt, lunging at Spencer.

“Suit yourself.” Feeling somehow calm under the layers of anxiety and hysteria crowding his mind, he thrust his sword forward, neatly spearing Saporta.

“Christ,” said Saporta, looking with confusion at the growing bloodstain on his tunic.

Spencer twisted his sword and pulled it out, ignoring Saporta’s gasp of pain. “Who’s the captain now?” he said, laughing breathlessly. God, he wished Ryan were here to see this.

Saporta glared suspiciously, as if he suspected Spencer had played a trick on him, and then crumpled to the floor.

Now there was only Beckett.

Spencer stalked forward purposefully towards the Bishop, whose delicate features were frozen in a grim yet serene smile. “If you kill me, Spencer,” he said softly, “the curse won’t ever be broken. Think of Ryan, and what that would do to him.”

How on _earth_ Beckett could possibly have the nerve to say that, to talk of Ryan’s suffering as if he alone weren’t the cause of it, was utterly beyond Spencer. “Damn you,” he said, involuntarily raising his sword.

“You’re not going let me have a shot at him?”

Spencer’s heart stopped. His lungs froze mid-breath, trapping their air in a painful, tense limbo. _He knew that voice._

“Ryan?” he said. He could hear the quavering in his voice, the tears, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Slowly, so slowly, not even caring that he left Beckett at his defenseless back, he turned.

Ryan was as tall and slender and graceful as he’d been when Spencer had first laid eyes on him an eternity ago. There was little left of the haughty boy he’d been then, though; the man standing before Spencer was smiling brilliantly, his dark eyes full of emotion, his face streaked with tears. Spencer couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t—

Beckett sniffled behind him, and Spencer turned, disgusted, to find him hiding his face from the sight of Ryan’s approach.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” said Spencer. He hadn’t understood, really, what Jon had meant when he’d said that Ryan and Spencer would have to ‘confront’ the Bishop. Spencer just assumed it meant they’d fight. But this was clearly what breaking the curse really required: Ryan and Spencer showing him that his power over them was broken, that despite his curses and his armies and his wealth, they had managed to overcome him, and they were going to live long and happy lives without ever giving him a second thought.

He grabbed Beckett’s shoulders and forced his head up. “Look,” he said. “Look at him. It’s daylight now.” Ryan stepped lightly through a dim sunbeam shining through a broken stained-glass window and playing on the floor; there was something sharp and bitter in his smile now as he looked calmly at Beckett.

“Look at me,” he said, meeting Beckett’s eyes. “It’s dark out, still.” Beckett stared blankly at him, despair and hatred warring in his expression.

Ryan stepped forward again, drawing close to Spencer’s side. “Spencer,” he said in a low, trembling voice. “I….” Words proving inadequate, he extended one shaky, bony hand towards Spencer’s face.

In an almost unbearable throe of ecstasy, Spencer grabbed hold of Ryan’s hand and held it to his cheek, reveling in the feel of Ryan’s smooth fingers on his skin, rejoicing in the love he saw in Ryan’s eyes. Ryan sighed, and Spencer laughed weakly. He turned again to Beckett.

“Now look at us. We’re together. We’re both human.” He smiled. “It’s over, now. You’re finished.”

Beside him, Ryan stiffened. “I never wanted anything from you,” he said to Beckett. “I never asked you for anything. I never promised you anything. Here,” he said, holding a hand out. “You can have these. I don’t need them anymore.” He uncurled his fists and dropped his hawk’s jesses on the cathedral floor.

“I can’t--” The Bishop grabbed at his chest as if unable to breathe. “I--” He stared at Ryan, his eyes large with anguish. “I never meant to cause you pain. I only wanted….”

Whatever he wanted, they’d never know; his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground, trembling. Spencer’s hatred suddenly replaced by confusion and concern, he fell to his knees by the Bishop’s side to see what the matter was.

Beckett’s body trembled in huge spasms, as if something terrible within was trying to claw its way out of his body. Muttered words fell from his tongue, but they were in no language that Spencer knew. Next to him, Ryan was staring at the Bishop with horror.

Before their eyes, his limbs shrivelled and changed their shape, now covered in fur, now curved with a hawk’s feathers. Spencer involuntarily crossed himself, and Ryan shuddered. Beckett shrank and shrieked and they turned their eyes away, unable to bear the sight of whatever transformation he was undergoing.

“He’s a wolf,” said Brendon wonderingly. Spencer’d forgotten that Brendon was even there, but as he and Jon rushed to see the wizened, starveling wolf that William Beckett, Bishop of Aquila, had become, Spencer was overwhelmed with love; for them; for Patrick, who was standing and panting by the door, clutching his side; for Pete, who was helping him to sit in a pew; for Gerard and Frank and Joe and Andy, who were staring in various degrees of shock and happiness at Spencer and Ryan and the wolf. And for Ryan. Most of all, for Ryan.

He swept Ryan into a fierce hug. “God,” he muttered into Ryan’s shoulder, “I thought I’d never see you again, like this.” He wanted to revel in every detail of this moment, devote his whole attention to the feel of Ryan’s arms around him or Ryan’s hair against his cheek, if he could ever calm himself down enough to do it.

Ryan pulled away and gave him a watery smile. “I look disgusting. Andy lent me some old work clothes. I probably smell as bad as Brendon.”

“You don’t,” said Spencer. The truth was, Ryan could be completely covered in sewage at this point and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to Spencer. But Spencer couldn’t think of the words to express this properly, so instead, he leaned in to kiss Ryan.

It was everything he remembered—as warm and wet, as soft and demanding and thrilling as any of the kisses he and Ryan had shared while hunting or walking in Spencer’s gardens or resting in Ryan’s library. Better, because now Spencer knew what it was like to be so lonely that death was preferable, and that this kiss was a promise that he would never have to suffer such loneliness again. Neither of them would.

Brendon sniffled from the floor by the transformed Bishop, and Spencer couldn’t help but laugh from sheer happiness. He pulled Brendon and Jon up and drew them into an embrace, which Ryan joined half a moment later. _What a day,_ he thought, exhausted by the enormity of his gratitude. _What a day._

 

 _Friday_

“There you go,” said Jon. Brendon watched as he wrapped a fresh bandage around the gash in Joe’s upper arm, which was already beginning to heal.

“Thanks,” Joe said. “Feels almost as good as new.”

Jon brushed dust off his habit as he stood up. “It’s healing nicely,” he said. “Just be careful to keep it clean, and you shouldn’t have any problems.”

Joe raised his eyebrows and then gave Jon a slightly suspicious look. “I have been. Why? Aren’t you sticking around to keep an eye on it?”

Jon shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought I’d be heading back in the next day or two.” Brendon’s heart sank at the thought.

Joe frowned, but Frank, who was sitting cross-legged on a table next to the Way brothers, nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “the big city’s great and all, but we should be getting back, too, before the crops get too badly flooded.” The temperature had risen noticeably after the morning of the eclipse, and rivulets of melted snow left the ground soggy and the roads slippery with puddles of filthy slush.

“Damn,” muttered Joe. “My first real adventure, and it’s over already.”

Andy laughed and threw an arm around Joe. “You want adventure,” he said, “come stay at the inn for a while. I have a sneaking suspicion that those two”—he jerked a thumb at Pete and Patrick, who were arguing animatedly about something over a bowl of stew—“are going to be providing plenty of excitement.”

“I’ve had about all the excitement I can stomach,” said Gerard with a grimace. Mikey didn’t say anything, simply smiling smugly and leaning up against his brother. He had good reason to be smug, Brendon thought. He couldn’t imagine a better replacement bishop than the one Mikey had come riding into town with two days after the eclipse. Ray Toro was a tall man with unruly hair and a big smile who’d immediately set about calming the people of Aquila, gathering information about the situation under Beckett, and arranging recompensation for the people who had been arrested or thrown off their land for minor or imaginary crimes. Even Brendon, with his general distrust of priests, liked the man a lot.

But then, Ray Toro wasn’t the priest Brendon was concerned about most at the moment.

“Are you going back to the castle?” he asked Jon, hoping he didn’t sound too desperately interested in the answer.

“I thought I would,” said Jon with a helpless half-smile. “I don’t know what I’ll do with myself out there, without a curse to research, but….” He shrugged.

Pete jumped up from his seat across Patrick and clapped Jon heartily on the back. “Well, you’ll have to tell us where this castle of yours is, so I can get a healer when Patrick here ruptures his stitches throwing a bowl at me.”

Brendon looked; sure enough, Pete’s shirtfront was covered in chunks of potatoes and thick brown broth.

“He deserved it,” said Patrick nonchalantly.

Jon snickered, and Pete sighed long-sufferingly. “I practically save this boy’s life, letting Andy stitch him up and getting Joe to get supplies and mopping his brow and whatnot, and this is the thanks I get!”

“I’ll go get you some water, and you can clean yourself up, all right?” Without waiting for an answer, Jon grabbed a pail by the door and headed out the back, towards the well. Without really even thinking about it, Brendon ran after him.

“Won’t you be kind of lonely, out there in the middle of nowhere?” he asked. “And I mean, no offense, but your castle’s still kind of a ruin. And you’re a healer—shouldn’t you be somewhere where you can heal people? And, I don’t know, take confessions and give sermons and stuff?”

Jon paused and looked at Brendon for a long moment with an undecipherable expression, and then set his bucket down. “You could,” he began. He looked at the ground and then started again. “I don’t know if you’re staying in the city, or, or going with Ryan and Spencer, or what your plans are, but if you wanted to, you could come with me. Help me with my potions and fix the castle or…whatever.”

“I don’t….” Brendon hadn’t been especially fond of the decrepit old fortress, but sharing it with Jon sounded miles better than stealing again, hoping like hell every day that he would manage to steal enough for a roof over his head and some food, fearing a knife in the gut or a date with the hangman’s noose. Brendon had lived in a monastery once before, though, and it hadn’t been a good experience. “I’m not a monk or anything,” he said, clearing his throat. “I mean, you know. I steal stuff.” He couldn’t even say he was reformed at this point, because even if it was for a good cause, it was hard to deny he’d been putting his pickpocketing skills to hard work. “I don’t know anything about healing, or building things or…much of anything, really.”

“Don’t say that,” said Jon seriously, putting a hand on Brendon’s arm. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this, it’s that there are some very good people who also happen to be very good thieves. And I’d never—you don’t have to be a monk. It’s not as if the castle is a real monastery anyway. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just….” He bit his lower lip and stared at some point over Brendon’s shoulder. “I enjoy your company.”

And that, right there, was why Brendon couldn’t go stay in the crumbly, wonderful old monastery with Jon. He pulled himself away from Jon’s grip, watching unhappily as Jon held his hand out for a moment longer before dropping it to his side. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I couldn’t go live with you.”

“All right,” said Jon in a low, sad voice. “I see.”

“No, no, you don’t!” _God, God, please don’t let him hate me. You’ve already done so much for me, but please, just let him still be my friend._ “You don’t understand,” he repeated. “I—I like you.”

Jon frowned at him, confused. “I like you, too.”

“No, no. I don’t mean…not in a chaste way. I mean, like Ryan likes Spencer. Maybe not that epic, you know, but sort of in that vein.” Before Jon could say anything, Brendon kept talking, hoping to cut off any preliminary expressions of disgust or awkwardness. “And I know, it’s stupid, because you’re a priest, so you can’t…and obviously you don’t hate Ryan and Spencer, but that doesn’t mean you’d…I know what the Church thinks of sodomy, and you’ve just been so kind to me, and I don’t want you to hate me, and--”

“Hey,” said Jon. And then, all of a sudden, neither of them were talking, because Jon was kissing Brendon, his tongue effectively stopping Brendon’s. And _fuck_ , how did a priest learn how to kiss like that? Brendon just wanted to melt into the moist, hot tension of Jon’s mouth. Even the feel of Jon’s beard scratching his chin and neck made every nerve in Brendon’s body tingle with pleasure.

Jon pulled away, slowly, cupping Brendon’s face in his hands. “I don’t hate you,” he said softly. “I could never hate you.” He smiled, calm and warm and unhurried.

“But--” Brendon managed before words deserted him. _How?_ What? How on earth was it possible that, all this time Brendon had been hiding his hard-ons and pining secretly over every smile and word and touch, Jon had been hiding—if not the same thing, then the same kind of thing, at least?

“Oh, Brendon.” Jon sighed, more sober now. “I’m not—I haven’t been a real priest in two years. Not since I was excommunicated.” Damn, Brendon had forgotten about that. “And when I entered the Church, I really meant all the vows I made, chastity and self-denial and all that. But then I look at what it did to Bill. I think—I think Bill thought he was already damned for wanting Ryan the way he did, and so since he was beyond saving anyway, there wasn’t any reason to try to be good anymore. And I don’t ever want to think that, to think that nothing I ever did could be as bad as loving you.”

“You—what?” Brendon felt as if his brains had abandoned him entirely. He couldn’t process what Jon was saying, and his mind kept focusing on tiny, irrelevant details, like the frustrated motions Jon made with his hands, the way his eyes closed briefly when he talked about the Bishop. _Loving,_ he had said. _Loving you._

“I love you,” said Jon determinedly. “Maybe that seems foolish, but—I never met anyone who did as much as you have to help two strangers. And you’re so clever, and brave, and….” He seemed to lose his courage, and he looked down. “If you wanted to come back to the castle with me, I’d be happy, and if you wanted me to stay in Aquila with you, I’d be happy then, too.”

Brendon silently apologized for all the times he’d berated God for being cruel, or whined about being lonely. He’d never imagined in a million years that God had such a wonderful gift in store for him. Feeling almost giddy with happiness, he reached out to grasp Jon’s hand. “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s go out to your ruined castle and pick herbs and fix your bridge and feed your goats.”

Jon smiled like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You really want to?”

Brendon nodded. “I love you,” he said, and the expression on Jon’s face at that was worth all the shit he’d had to put up with for the last week and a half. Without waiting for Jon to respond, Brendon pulled him closer and kissed him.

“Well,” said a wry voice from somewhere behind Brendon, “I can’t say that I saw that coming.”

Brendon and Jon both started, and Brendon whipped his head around to see Ryan and Spencer standing behind them, leaning on the wall of the tavern. Spencer looked befuddled; Ryan, despite his earlier words, looked more satisfied than surprised.

Spencer cleared his throat. “We were…Joe said you were leaving.”

Brendon nodded. “Yeah. We’re going back to Jon’s castle.”

“I figured—unless you have something else you need me for?” Jon added, sounding a little nervous.

“No, I….” Spencer blinked and shook his head. “I can’t think of anything else I need you to do. I guess if you want to go, that’s fine.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “You three are ridiculous. Don’t be an idiot, Jon. Of course you’re not going back to live in that run-down, dirty, freezing castle. And Brendon, I don’t even want to know where you live in Aquila that you think living in that shithole sounds good. Between the two of us, Spencer and I own something like fifty square miles of land. I’m fairly sure you two can find someplace—preferably close by—to pick your herbs and make your potions and practice picking pockets and whatever the hell else you do for fun.”

“I--” Jon opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking like a particularly astonished fish. Brendon was pretty sure he didn’t look much better.

Ryan’s sardonic expression softened into a fondly exasperated smile, and he pushed himself off the wall to walk over and put a hand on their shoulders. “Jon,” he said, “It’s forgiven. It’s forgiven a hundred times over. And you!” He turned to Brendon. “I don’t know what Spencer and I ever did to deserve you, but whatever it was, it must have been something spectacular. We owe you. Both of you. More than we could ever repay.”

Brendon could feel himself blushing. “Thank you!” he said, knowing he sounded like an idiot but not sure what else to say. “I mean, I’m glad we did it. I’m glad we could help.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Ryan,” said Jon, giving him a quick smile. “Friends again?”

Instead of answering directly, Ryan looked over his shoulder and shot Spencer a flat, unimpressed look, and Spencer flushed and walked over to join them.

“Of course,” he said, and Jon reached out to shake his hand. Spencer’s face crumpled, and he pulled Jon into a fierce hug. “Christ, of _course_ we’re friends.” After a long moment of tight, back-pounding embracing, Spencer extricated himself and smiled at Brendon and Ryan, his eyes suspiciously bright. Brendon didn’t blame him; he felt his own eyes burning, and honestly, if there was ever a time to cry for happiness, for Brendon at least, this was it.

“Well,” said Ryan, “now that that’s settled, shall we go back inside?” He raised his voice and added, “Pete’s wondering if that tunic of his will ever get cleaned.”

“Got that right!” came Pete’s voice from inside. Jon laughed and shook his head. He went to fill the bucket and Brendon, so light-hearted that he felt he might float away at any moment, followed him.

“It’s all going to be all right now, isn’t it?” he asked, helping Jon pull the bucket up out of the well. “Everything…well, it’s all like it should be, right?”

Jon kissed the tip of Brendon’s nose and smiled as he took the bucket. “You know, Brendon, I think you’re right.”

The four of them went back into the tavern and were met by a chaotic scene involving Joe, Pete, Frank, a huge container of beer, and, improbably enough, a mule. In the grand scheme of things, though, Brendon couldn’t find much to complain about.

 

 _Epilogue_

In the years that followed, Brendon never picked another pocket and Jon never took another confession. Brendon did learn a lot about the art of making potions and poultices, and Jon learned a number of party tricks that served him very well at their frequent dinners with Spencer and Ryan. Their cottage on Spencer’s estate was small, but in much better shape than the castle, and the goats seemed to like it all right.

Spencer took over as Captain of the Guard again, and found he liked it much better when he didn’t have to worry that the Bishop would turn him into a wolf. Ryan began to take a great deal of pleasure in the arcane tomes that Jon brought back from his ruined castle, and became quite the expert in, among other things, different forms of magic, astronomy and its significance, and calligraphy. Most of all, though, he took pleasure in long afternoons spent in the sunshine with Spencer.

Mikey, Frank, and Gerard had thought that their lives would more or less go back to normal. As it turned out, however, they were never able to escape the friendships they had made. During one of Spencer and Ryan’s frequent periods of hospitality, Gerard discovered he had a talent for drawing the colorful illustrations that decorated Ryan’s illuminated texts, and it must be said that at times, he spent more time trying to depict the casting of a truth spell than he did sowing his wheat. Frank, meanwhile, was making the most unexpected friendships among the City Guard, and spent many a night exchanging ridiculous tales in a tavern with Sergeant Bryar. Mikey, for his part, often found himself advising the somewhat nervous Bishop Toro on how to deal with the poverty-stricken farmers of the province, and liked Toro enough to be pretty happy with that arrangement.

Patrick eventually healed, but he was never strong enough to rejoin the Guard. He wasn’t about to let Pete fall back into a life of crime, however, and so he suggested that they join Joe in his wine-selling enterprise. Pete, who had never really had any intentions of being a pickpocket again anyway, thought this was a great idea, and Joe was ecstatic to have some help. Andy occasionally complained that now he would _never_ get rid of the three of them, but he didn’t mean it. They gave him wine for his inn at bargain prices and they were always willing to argue about politics with him.

Travis and Maja had had some doubts about working for the Duchess of Salpeter, but as it turned out, the Duchess herself made up for all the risks the job entailed. She was sweet and respectful and generally made their jobs as easy as possible. She didn’t complain when they requested to bring on some of their former subordinates from the Guard—as a matter of fact, she seemed to like Morris, Fallers, and Wilson even better than she did Maja and Travis—and if she occasionally failed to hide a smile when they stumbled out of the same bedroom in the middle of the night to respond to a crisis, well, she never said anything about it.

Gabe Saporta didn’t die, but sometimes he wished he had. Although he understood the justice in making him and other higher-ups in the Guard working to restore the fields and farms they had razed, that didn’t mean he had to like it. On the plus side, he rarely if ever had to see Spencer fucking Smith, and nobody was stupid enough to talk about Smith in Gabe’s hearing. Also, he was having a hell of a lot more sex now that the Bishop wasn’t sending him out on crazy missions all the time, so there was that.

The Butcher didn’t really need two hands to do what he did, so his life didn’t change all that much.

Nobody in Aquila knew what had become of the old Bishop. The people in one of the villages outside of Appia, however, began to see a mangy, mournful-looking wolf wandering the woods. At first they had feared it was rabid, but soon they came to feel sorry for it, and they rarely had the heart to chase it away.

One day, a young man named Adam Siska was weeding his garden when he saw a naked man standing silently in a grove of trees by his house where the wolf sometimes roamed. Surprised, Adam wiped the dirt off his knees and went to greet the stranger.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Where did you come from?”

The man blinked. He had long, wild hair, and a sad, delicate face. Adam thought maybe he was a wood-sprite, or some sort of male dryad. “I’m…I’m Bill,” he said. “I can’t remember. I don’t know….”

Adam saw immediately that whoever this man was, he needed help, so he ran to get a blanket, wrapped it around Bill’s shoulders, and led him inside for a nice, warm cup of soup.

He never did find out where Bill came from, but the man certainly was helpful in the garden, so really, it all worked out in the end.


End file.
